


My Greatest Fear

by night_books



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe--set in 80s, Arachnophobia, Child Abuse, Depression, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Malnourishment, Murder Mystery, Other, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Poisoning, Protective Sirius, Self Harm, Sick Sirius, Suicide Attempt, Trigger Warnings, Trypophobia, anger issues, aphephosmophobia, aversion treatment, conversion therapy, drug use (medical), germaphobia, kynophobia, protective Remus, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26301022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_books/pseuds/night_books
Summary: Sirius is intrigued when a new boy comes to the mental hospital he's in. He sees something of himself in him, and he... likes him. They build something, akin to friendship.And then the murders start happening.___________________________________I just wanna make this clear here: I know it's been a while since I updated, but I promise I'm not abandoning this project. I've just started Uni and am having a harder time adjusting than I thought, so just bear with me on this one xDThanks
Relationships: Sirius Black & James Potter, Sirius Black & Regulus Black, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 77
Kudos: 62





	1. Prologue - Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so this has taken me a while. I have done some research (which was not pleasant), but please let me make this clear in the beginning: The description of the mental hospital in this fic is one of the very few who are like this. There are really good places, too, mine just happens to be one of the dark and angsty ones. Oops.
> 
> The actual chapters will be longer!

“ _Are you really gonna start this up again? Seriously?”_

“ _Technically, I’m always—”_

“ _I am warning you, Sirius Orion Black. Do not come at me with this attitude again, or God forbid, I… I will not tolerate this any longer.” His voice. So loud. Deep. Awful. It hurt his ears._

“ _Or what?” Sirius spat. “What are you gonna do that you haven’t done already?”_

“ _You should not tempt me,” he growled._

“ _Oh well, I guess I’m too late to that party.” Sirius grinned defiantely. “Cause honestly—I think by now, you’ve lost all of your leverage. Let’s see… Grounded? Check. Phone taken away? Check. Any privileges whatsoever on seeing my friends taken? Being confined to my room when we have guests because you can’t have me humiliate you in front of them? Only getting food once every day until I behave? Check, check, check. There’s not much more you can do—”_

_The sound was more shocking than the actual hand on his cheek. It was too loud in those huge, empty rooms. Sirius staggered back a bit, reaching up, then letting his hand fall down. He was not gonna give him that kind of satisfaction._

_Orion leaned back, letting out a sigh. “You know, maybe doing without some more food would do you good. Cleanse you. Give you some time to think.”_

_Sirius’s stomach twisted at the thought, but he forced a deviant smile on his lips. “Oh, I’m sure it’ll give me plenty of rest, thank you very much,” he chirped. “Maybe I can think about someone with gorgeous eyes and something between his—”_

_He just shook her head, obviously grossed out. “And you’re even surprised I treat you like this? You’re disgusting. Wait til your mother comes back—it’s not a wonder she hates you so much she can’t stand being inside this house anymore.”_

“ _Well, that might be me… Or it is this place. Honestly, this house could do with a makeover—it’s screaming creepy.”_

_This time it wasn’t just a slap, it was a full-blown punch. Sirius suspected he should’ve seen it coming… But he didn’t. The punch took him by surprise, knocking the air out of him, sending him flying until he crashed to the floor. He could feel blood in his mouth, his tongue immediately darting out and licking his lip where it split. The last thing he could see before his father closed the door, were two bright grey eyes, sadly staring at him from behind a cupboard._

_* * *_

Sirius woke up with a start and a cry of fear on his lips, automatically being surpressed by him pressing a hand to his mouth, the other curled into the front of his t-shirt. It was soaking with sweat, the fabric and some wet curls sticking to his skin and his forehead.

He groaned, flopping back onto the mattress, and covering his eyes in disgust. How much he hated those nightmares—and how much he hated that he was… grateful to his family for at least having had the decency of having them give him a single. He wouldn’t wanna share a room with a couple other boys, when there was the possibility of waking them up with his nightmares.

Of course, Grimmauld Place had not been a good environment for sharing the fact of having nightmares, either. They did not like it. Of course, that only made it worse, but at least Sirius and Reg had learned to keep it to themselves.

Reg.

The name was like a burn, like a kick to the stomach—which Sirius definitely had had his fair share of—and he sat up again, leaning against the wall and drawing his legs up, resting his chin on his knees and closing his eyes against the surge of pain and sadness.

He missed his brother. So much.

The thought of him, of his memories of him, of his sad grey eyes hurt even more, making him weirdly sick to the stomach. Maybe it was the warmth. End of August, theoretically Fall wasn’t far away, but the nights were still hot and the bad dreams certainly didn’t help. The thoughts of Reg, the memories flooding back—suddenly everything was too much, too uncomfortable, and he could feel his heartbeat ratcheting up. His hands were shaking as he reached down to tug at the wet shirt and take it off.

It was too much.

He covered his eyes with his hands, taking in a deep, trembling breath and then looking up to stare at the clock on the wall, way above him. It was even behind some bars—they made it specifically so no one could reach and break it to create a weapon. It was past midnight already. In a bit more than five hours, the bell would ring, brutally tearing them away from their beds and get them into the hall for breakfast. He hated those hours… but they also meant something good.

Every second ticking on meant getting closer to 4pm—visiting hours.

He wasn’t exactly beloved, neither in this place nor at home, but James was trying to visit as often as possible, and Regulus had promised him in some letters he’d make sure he’d come by on some days… of course, only when their parents were at some meeting with people they considered more important than their own sons.

Which, in itself, probably wasn’t all too hard for them.

Sirius slowly curled up on his side, laying in top of the blankets, not caring as a breeze of fresh air hit his skin. He shuddered, but simply curled up tighter, hugging himself. He hated this place, so much. All he wanted to do was just… get out. Sometimes, it felt like he never would. Like he’d just rot in there, his own jail—his own personal hell—until someone ended it… or maybe until he ended it.

This place was sucking the life force out of him.

He closed his eyes again, trying to shut out the dear and despair, trying to cripple him. His throat constricted, making it hard to inhale oxygen, and he forced himself to breathe through it. This was a common thing that happened, every time after he had those worse nightmares, actually. He could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and blinked them away, furiously.

He would not cry. That would only prove _Their_ point. And he wouldn’t give them any confirmation, wouldn’t see them justified what they’d done.

He took in a deep breath, working through the anxiety of being confined to a tight, dark space, completely alone. It would be fine—he’d feel better once he saw Reg again, once he was sure he was okay. He’d be okay, he was sure of it. He had to be.

* * *

The bell rang way too early, as always, and Sirius let out a low groan, trying to pull the pillow over his ears. He had not been sleeping enough, _at all_. Usually, at home, he didn’t have a hard time getting up, but this place didn’t have his parents yelling at him. Though at least in this place he got somewhat of a decent breakfast.

He rolled to his side, getting up and straightening out his sheets and fluffing his pillow, making sure the tiny object hid in it’s case wasn’t obvious. Then he got dressed—not like they had anything other but their stupid hospital clothes which wasn’t anything more than trousers, a shirt and a sweater for the colder days. He hated the fabric of them—which was probably his spoiled rich-people education kicking in—but oh well.

The hall was filled with way too thin people, people with overweight, kids way too pale, and so many others, it was exhausting to keep count. Also, Sirius could not help himself—and he hated how much it was etched into his brain—thinking about how some of those people shouldn’t be here… How they shouldn’t be there at all.

_No._

This thought made him wanna puke.

Why were his parents _still_ such a constant when he thought about… well, anything? After everything he’d done to try and get rid of their words, their ideas, their morals—he’d worked so hard to erase everything they’d taught him. And still, it was there.

It was disgusting.

He shook his head, grabbing a tray and going over to get his breakfast—some toast, tomatoes, and fried eggs that looked like someone had chopped up a sponge—and sat down on a table near the entrance, catching a glance of the reception through the heavy glass windows. Theoretically, he knew no one would come until at least 4pm, but something in him just could not wait.

Sirius sighed, turning his focus back on the sponge on his plate… when he heard a loud bang. He snapped his head up, staring through the glass of the security door anxiously. He knew some people made a ruckus when they were brought in—he knew he sure had—and they usually regretted it horribly.

He shuddered at the memory, a cold fist closing around his stomach.

He did not want this to happen to his worst enemy.

He waited for the kid to come in front of the glass door—maybe, with some luck, he could catch his attention and with a look… calm him down or something. He squirmed uncomfortably, trying to get a better look… Until he actually saw him.

He looked very angry, but more than that, he seemed… terrified. Sirius’s heart clenched with worry. He’d seen some people come in here like that. It didn’t end well, and he didn’t just think about the way the hospital introduced its patients to the way they were treated.

Sometimes, they ended up… gone.

Sirius tensed, looking around, trying to get the boys attention who was now held back by four security guards. He… almost got it. He could at the very least see his eyes, their gaze just grazing him in his fury, his fear, and Sirius was struck.

They were radiant and intense, and of a glowing amber.


	2. Remus Lupin

The day went on agonizingly slow. As usual, Sirius didn’t really have much to do during the day. There was one group therapy session thing in which he refused to speak up and simply shut down, not wanting to listen to people having even more issues than he did. His mind went to the boy he’d seen from his place in the hall, those glowing, amber eyes, both terrified and extremely angry. The fact that there was so much strength in someone so tiny and thin was… surprising.

Surprisingly… refreshing.

Sirius had encountered a lot of patients in the couple weeks he’d been stuck in this place. Most of them were timid, shy, mostly scared and didn’t talk, didn’t laugh at jokes, didn’t really do… anything. The others talked way too much—but only to themselves. Both didn’t exactly make for great company.

Now this one, he could be interesting. Sirius couldn’t quite explain it—he’d never really been one to form quick attachments—but this boy was fascinating and he made a decision before he even properly realized he did: He wanted to be friends with him.

And if Sirius Black wanted something, he’d make damn sure he got it.

At least, that was the way he’d been raised.

Sirius spent the morning in this one therapy session and then had to wander the hallways in boredom. There weren’t many possibilities for activities… anything to spend your time doing something useful, really. Sirius knew about a room where one could knit—only under surveillance, of course, and only for the patients deemed harmless—and one for art. He was actually thinking about checking that one out some time.

But for now, he didn’t feel like sitting around others painting whatever crap assignment they were given. _“Draw your greatest fear,”_ yeah, of course. He wasn’t scared, he was angry. And there wasn’t enough paint in the ward to give form to his anger.

So instead he wandered, in search of that new boy he’d seen.

It was surprising, really, how dark and depressing a place was, designed to treat depression and that sort. The rooms didn’t have a lot of windows, and they couldn’t be reached unless you had a ladder—which, of course, you didn’t. The hallways actually didn’t have any windows whatsoever, and were only dimly lit by some barred lightbulbs restricted to the ceiling so no one could reach them. The walls were painted in this ugly, muddy sort of green that could make one sick just from looking at it.

Honestly, was it so hard to make a place look at least somewhat friendly and warm?

He made a turn before he ended up in the dining hall and pulled to a sharp stop when he heard someone talking in the room next to him. The door was locked and didn’t have a glass window to look through—it was one of the rooms for staff and doctors, psychiatrists and the like. Sirius had always been good at sneaking around without being seen or heard—certainly something he’d learned while at Grimmauld Place. Sometimes, this trait did him a favor.

“—never seen much like it, and I’ve seen loads of things,” someone said, a dark, male voice. Sirius had heard that voice a couple times before and had seen the face belonging to it once, when he’d gotten himself in trouble. He belonged to the security detail. That guy was a brute. “Couldn’t think this came from a kid as small as my dog.”

Sirius scowled involuntarily. What person compared a scared little boy with a hip-sized, slobbering old dog with teeth as big as his forearm?

“Yeah, those scratches look pretty uncomfortable,” a second voice spoke up, female, worried. “Sure you don’t want that checked out?”

“It’s just scratches,” huffed the man. “It’s not like he can give me the raibies.”

Sirius grinned darkly. He hoped that kid had gotten him good and those scratches would hurt for a little longer. He sure deserved it at least. He leaned against the wall next to the door, closing his eyes so he could focus on their voices a bit better.

“Well, I wouldn’t be all too sure about that,” a third voice said, also a man. He had this gruff sort of voice, like he was constantly chewing on pebbles. “Who knows what sort of sicknesses he might have; he came from the weirdest kind of place, all muddy and foggy. I wouldn’t be surprised if people there suddenly turned into zombies and no one even noticed.”

“What do you mean?” The woman asked. She sounded very confused and Sirius couldn’t blame her. What the fuck was that guy talking about?

“Well, it was this tiny village where his parents called us to. Loads of fields, which isn’t anything new, but… I don’t know. The place just gave me the creeps. Isn’t that right, Avery?”

“Hm,” the first man, Avery, made in response. “Weird place for sure, for weird people, too. I tell ya, getting the boy out of the house was hard enough, but did anyone help? No. Did they mind their own bussiness—I wouldn’t mind that. But they didn’t do that either, no, instead they stood there, watching. Silently. I don’t think they even gave a shit.”

“Well, I’m just worried cause of this kid,” a fourth voice screeched, female, and Sirius flinched involuntarily. He hated voices like these—too loud, too high, like a piece of chalk breaking when it hit the blackboard, like bare fingernails on styrofoam. These voices reminded him way too much of another one, quite like it, that followed him from his memory into his nightmares, and from his nightmares back to the waking world.

“Why? He’s small, I doubt he’ll be much trouble.” The other woman again.

“Well, haven’t you listened, dear?” The screechy woman critizised. “He was brutal, this kid. Hard to contain! Amycus, what did you have to give him to calm him down?”

“The full dose of my favorite,” the man with the gruff voice, Amycus, said. “Not like administration likes us doing that, but he just wouldn’t calm down, so I just made him. He’s in the other room, sleeping it off. He’ll be good as a lamb tonight, you’ll see.”

Sirius growled lowly, curling his hands into fists and digging his nails into his palm. The drugs. He wasn’t sure how legal it even was, but no one seemed to care.

“I just think…” The screechy voice spoke up again, letting out a high giggle. “I think this boy could prove difficult! You know, we’re gonna have our hands full getting him back on the right track.”

“That’s what you said about the Black boy too, Dolores, and so far he hasn’t been much trouble,” the other woman teased. A clicking sound, like someone was lighting a cigarette. “He’s gotten himself in trouble… once? And one night in solitary sure calmed him down.”

“That’s not hard,” Avery spoke up again, sniffing. “I put him there myself. Solitary calms down every odd one we have. No one likes it there.”

“Well, he hasn’t been anything but easy after that,” the woman said. Sirius was pretty sure he knew her voice from somewhere, but there were so many nurses in this place, it was hard to tell. “We have more difficult cases, and you know that.”

After that, the voices kinda mixed together, like everyone was talking at once.

“That might be, but…” — “About that Black boy, Athena…” — and the most striking one.

“I need to leave, my wife is waiting for me to pick up the kids from school today,” Avery said, the scraping sound of something being dragged across the ground—the chair, probably—piercing Sirius’s ears. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Amycus.”

A surge of fear shot through Sirius and he snapped his eyes open, quickly turning around and hurrying down the hallway, slipping into one of the unoccupied rooms. It was the reading room… of course no one would be in here. He fell down on one of the ratty couches, letting his eyes close for just a second.

He really, really hated this place.

* * *

He spent a lot of that day in the reading room, missing lunch and lazily flicking through a copy of ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’, realizing with a smirk they seemed to have forgotten that this novel had been written by a gay author about three definitely not straight characters. He was also surprised they had a story this disturbing in a place filled to the brink with unstable people, but oh well. He wouldn’t complain.

He almost missed when a couple nurses started looking for him—of course no one exepcted him in the reading room and so they only found him when he stepped out—because he had a visitor.

“Really?” He tried not to show his anxious anticipation, the little spark of hope igniting in his chest at those words.

The nurse who’d told him smiled softly at that. Se was one of the nice ones, Athena. “Yes, dear. You should go, visiting hours are almost over… which also means you’ll probably miss dinner if you don’t hurry.”

“I’ll hurry then,” Sirius muttered, quickly hiding ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’ in the pocket of his hoodie. He was pretty sure Athena had seen, but she didn’t say anything about it.

She accompanied him to the room where the patients could receive visitors and then left him with a soft little smile and a warning that he shouldn’t miss dinner. Sirius couldn’t care less. He opened the door and let his gaze wander over the empty tables, chairs and couches, stopping at the sight of messed up black hair resting on the couch; and his heart made a happy lurch.

He grinned and came closer… slowing down when he realised that something about this was… wrong. Reg’s hair was never this messy. They weren’t allowed to have messy hair like that, or to have the collars of their shirts crumpled like that—they had to be no less than perfect.

His brother wasn’t there.

When he’d surrounded the couch and come to a stop in front of his visitor, his best friend smiled at him widely and Sirius felt guilty for the pang of disappointment that hurt in his chest like someone had just stabbed him. He had always been thrilled when his friend visited him… But he supposed today had just been a strange day for him.

He shook his head and searched for the smile he knew was hidden behind the initial disappointment, frustration and sadness.

“James,” he breathed and let himself fall into his friend’s arms who hugged him tightly.

“Hey there, buddy,” James said against his ear, warm breath ghosting over his neck. He’d always felt safe when he was with James and this time wasn’t an exception. Sirius could feel himself relax for the first time in days. “You okay? You didn’t look so good when you came in.”

“I’m fine,” said Sirius and quickly shook his head again to chase away the last bits of bitterness drawn so clearly on his face. He smiled. “I didn’t think I’d see you again before next week! Didn’t Fleamont have something to do in… wherever it was?”

James laughed, a bright, untroubled laugh, light as a feather, dancing on the the rays of dying sunlight falling through the small windows.

“Yeah, Dad needs to do some… management about work—I never quite understand it, but oh well. Anyways, some plans changed and he had to go this way anyways, so he dropped me off! I’ll sleep at some relatives and go home tomorrow.”

James seemed oddly jumpy and happy, even more than usual. Sirius frowned, not being able to surpress the first instinct he was taught: mistrust.

No one was this happy to his best friend when he was stuck in a mental hospital he didn’t have many changes getting out of. Even if said friend had told him not to act like this was the most awful thing happening in his life right now. What was going on?

No.

No, James was his friend. His brother in anything but blood.

He was probably just… happy that he’d gotten to see him this week, especially because it hadn’t been planned. He was happy to see his friend, just like Sirius was happy about it.

They spent some time talking about how Sirius would be missing school soon, how James would bring him some stuff so he could keep up with his reading. Sirius gave James some ideas for pranks he would pull on some of their less friendly classmates, insisting he’d go through with them because—“I don’t wanna do that alone, that’s so boring! I need you,” James whined—, and then, shortly before the bell rang for the second time, signaling James would have to leave, he leaned forwards.

“Sirius, before I go—I know how hard this place is for you, okay? I know… about half of the stuff that’s going on here and that’s already enough to make me wanna toss my cookies.”

Sirius blinked, trying to avoid his gaze. He hadn’t told James everything about his… treatment and what his parents had allowed, not wanting to upset him even more.

“And I know it’s hard to get out of here. But whatever is going on, don’t lose it.” James’s eyes were basically glowing, radiant with something Sirius couldn’t quite make out. Was it… hope? No, it seemed more like… joy, some sort of determination. “I’m… my parents and I, we’re working on something, okay? I promise you, however dark it’ll get, I will get you out of here and I will make sure your parents will never lay hands on you again.”

Sirius felt strangely hot. “James, what—”

But the bell rang and one of the security guards impatiently told his friend that he had to go, leaving Sirius sitting alone on the couch, staring at the wall incredulously.

* * *

Sirius was still in this weird daze when he left the visitor’s room and went to the dining hall to get the leftovers that were served. He was so caught up in his thoughts, he barely looked up as he navigated his tray through between the tables—most were already empty and abandoned, the patients being back in their rooms, but he preferred his place at the huge window reaching from the ground to the ceiling. It was the only one like it in the entire hospital and lucky for him, a lot of patients felt uncomfortable about it.

He looked up just as he passed a table close to a wall… and stopped at the sight of the kid sitting there.

It was the boy. The boy from before, the one he’d seen come in during breakfast.

He almost hadn’t recognized him—probably because he wasn’t screaming at thrashing and hitting people—but mostly because he was so much thinner and paler than he had expected. He had dark circles under his sunken, dull eyes, his skin waxen pale and he looked somewhat green around the edges. Without hesitating another second, he put his tray down on the place next to the boy and sat down.

The boy blinked slowly, turning a bit to stare at him.

Amber eyes. So unusual. Fascinating. Captivating.

“You caused a bit of a ruckus, huh?” Sirius sad blithely, taking the plastic knife to haphazardly cut the bit of meat on his plate. “Yeah, I’m guessing you’re feeling queasy and weak… like your limbs are actually lead and yet they hurt, like tiny needles?”

The boy shrugged slightly, then winced. Sirius nodded.

“That’s the drugs they’ve given you. Don’t know what they’re called, but apparently it’s still legal.” He rolled his eyes. “They’re administered when a patient is considered a danger to himself or others, and… well, like I said, you caused quite the ruckus.”

“Is there any—anything i-interesting you wanna s-say about this, t-too? Or is it just… j-just—just randomly throwing those f-facts at m-me?”

Sirius raised his eyebrows in surprise, but he couldn’t quite force back the smile. Sassy. “Well, I didn’t mean this as an insult,” he explained. “I just figured maybe it’d be easier for you to fit in here and get in less trouble if someone shows you the ropes around here. You’ll see, it’s actually quite boring in this place.”

“I wouldn’t s-say boredom is what w-worries me the m-m-most,” the boy forced out between gritted teeth, picking at a pea.

“Believe me, it will.” Sirius smiled sadly, then reached out his hand. “But I’ll make things less boring, I promise. I’m Sirius Black.”

The boy hesitated, then took his hand and shook it shakily. “I’m R-Remus. Lupin.”


	3. Spiders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I don't know exactly about how sensitive people are to these topics, but I mean  
> a) some implied/referenced self-harm, TW suicidal thoughts  
> b) spiders. loads of spiders. I don't know about that, but for people with arachnophobia, this might be uncomfortable/triggering
> 
> Have fun?  
> Thanks to everyone for reading!

This day had definitely been… interesting, to say the least. Sirius had witnessed a boy being dragged into the hospital, he’d listened to the nurses and the security guards talking about how he ‘he might prove difficult’ and how they had actually drugged him up because they couldn’t get him to calm down, which… wasn’t exactly Sirius’s idea of calming someone. He’d been… disappointed and yet thrilled to find out the person who’d visited him wasn’t Regulus but James.

Such an exhausting feeling. Disappointment because it wasn’t his brother visiting him, guilt for even feeling disappointed in the first place, the urge to smile at his friend so he wouldn’t be hurt at the expression on his face, and the actual happiness about seeing him.

Why were feelings so damn weird?

And now this kid. The boy, Remus Lupin. At least something about his day he’d actually planned on. He had wanted to talk to the new one, to show him around. There was something absolutely fascinating about him that Sirius just couldn’t quite explain. He’d only seen him twice so far, talked to him only once, and had only gotten a couple stuttered replies.

But he just… _knew_ that he wanted to be friends with him.

More than that, he wanted to protect him. He saw something in him that reminded him way too much of himself, in a way, maybe Reg—even though the idea alone of comparing him like that was… odd and made him feel strangely squirmish about things, like it was just wrong.

Well, he’d find out more in the morning.

Sirius had skipped the little pep talk they got every night before they were sent to their rooms, going straight to his own bedroom and closing the door behind him carefully, making sure no one lurked in the hallway before he approached his bed and slid a hand into his pillowcase, taking out the object he’d stored inside.

The glass shard was cool and icy against his skin. If he’d move his fingers just a little bit, the jagged ends would cut into his skin and draw blood. And he’d have to deal with trying to explain that wound, probably ending in having secutity search his room for anything… bad.

Which he didn’t want. He also didn’t want to use that glass shard, not now, not any time soon. It wasn’t that he actually wanted to hurt himself—besides, there were many other ways to accomplish that without making use of something sharp.

He didn’t wanna do anything with it, not now. He just wanted it as… assurance. In case things went downhill, in case he’d feel like he’d burst, in case… In case he’d never get out unless it was feet first and in a body bag.

And he liked being able to hold something like this in his hands, being able to say that this was what he could decide over. With all the things these people here had taken from him—too many, too cruelly—this was his. It was like his only way of saying that he hadn’t lost his mind in this place yet, that they hadn’t broken him, and that he wouldn’t change.

Not for anything in the entire world.

Not if they tied him down and tried to beat it into him.

He put the shard back into his pillowcase, making sure it was underneath the pillow so it wouldn’t accidentally cut him if he moved to harshly in his sleep. He was pretty sure he didn’t move much when he slept, something else he’d taught himself while he’d been living at Grimmauld Place. And this place wasn’t much different. He shouldn’t draw attention to himself.

No one should do that, if they wanted to keep their sanity and their dignity.

He curled up on the bed, drawing his blanket up to his shoulders against the cool air around him, twisting his neck in the most uncomfortable of ways to look up and out of the tiny, barred window. The moon was shining bright, almost full by now, and Sirius was pretty sure there was a moth in front of his window. He loved moths.

They… just meant something to him, something he couldn’t explain yet. Maybe never would. Just like that Lupin kid.

He closed his eyes, hoping for a quiet night.

* * *

“ _Walburga, you have no idea how glad I am that you are back.”_

_His voice was carried through the dark, empty, cold house, up the staircase and right to Sirius, where he was sitting on the floor next to his room, listening quietly. He’d seen his mother drive up all the way from his window, and he wanted to listen in on his parents’ conversation._

_Especially if it would be about him. Again._

“ _What has he done now?” Her shrill, painful voice snarled, making Sirius shudder. His father was one thing—just sometimes a hit or a kick, forbidding him from leaving his room or getting proper meals. But his mother… She was his very own devil. She always seemed to know just the right words, would say just enough to spiral him into the most shattering doubts, the most crippling anxieties, and the most life-sucking depression._

_He feared her. Had feared her, once. Maybe still a little._

_But mostly, he felt hatred._

“ _Well, I suppose if you asked what he hasn’t done, it’d be easier to answer,” Orion sighed. Soft rustling, apparently he had taken her coat. “He is up in his room, if you wanna see him…”_

“ _No,” Walburga sharply interrupted, sniffling a little. “It smells weird. Has no one been cleaning while I was away? Honestly, what do we have servants for?” Heavy steps, to the other room. The living room, no doubt. “And the fire isn’t lit—honestly, what do we even pay our servants for?”_

Perhaps the fire isn’t lit because it’s the beginning of summer _, Sirius thought bitterly, drawing his legs up and resting his chin on his knees._ It’s not like we’ll freeze.

“ _Well, darling, I’ve had my hands full with our son. He’s really acting out.”_

“ _I don’t_ care _about Sirius right now, my love!” Walburga let out a heavy sigh, smacking her lips. “Now tell me, how is Regulus doing? Has he been good while I was away?”_

“ _Regulus has been… fine.”—What? Regulus had been the perfect son!—“But I fear… Sirius might not be good company for him right now. You know, he’s in this… easily to be manipulated kind of age right now, and we don’t want the wrong person fiddling with his wiring, now do we?”_

_Sirius really shouldn’t be surprised anymore, he knew this. He knew he shouldn’t be. And he wasn’t, he supposed. He was just… shocked, somewhat. He leaned back, letting out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. When he opened his eyes again, Reg was across the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest, staring at him._

_And when he opened his mouth, it seemed like_ She _was speaking to him, directly through his brother, in that same screeching, dangerous voice._

“ _I hate you. You disgust me. I dont know how I could’ve ever considered you family.”_

_The words were like tiny black spiders crawling out his mouth from between his lips, dozens of long, hairy, spindly black legs flitting over his brothers skin, his chin, his cheeks, scuttling down his neck, his collarbone, over his legs, hands, fingers down towards the floor, where, once there, they started scurrying over the floorboards and towards Sirius where he was still sitting on the ground. He tried to flee, scampering anxiously to escape their tiny legs, but it was too late._

_They had reached him, and their nature didn’t make it hard for them to climb up his legs and reach his hands and from there on get into every opening in his clothes, crawling over his skin, his hands, his arms, his legs, his stomach, his shoulders—until they reached his face, his mouth, nose, ears, eyes._

_It was worse than just a tickling feeling, it was crawling. Their legs were like needles and he could feel some of them crawl up his nose, and he thought he might choke. Then—he didn’t even know how that had happened because it was… impossible—there were some in his mouth. He tried not to chew, tried not to scream, wanted to simply get them out, but he was afraid that, if he opened his mouth to claw them out, more would use the opportunity and scatter down his throat with their spindly legs._

_Tears filled his eyes as he tried to figure out what to do, wanting to scream but obviously not able to._

_Then he felt something close to his ears, in his ear. Legs. Tiny, needly, spindly, hairy legs penetrating his ear. They were in his head, in his brain, in his nose, in his mouth—where he could… actually taste them, their earthy, meaty taste filling his throat—_

_They were everywhere._

* * *

Sirius shot upwards, being ripped out of his bad dream by screams. He promptly clamped a hand over his mouth and forced himself to breathe calmly, even though it burned in his lungs. It took him a couple seconds to get his bearing and realize that the screaming hadn’t stopped—and that it wasn’t coming from him.

He threw the blanket away, grabbed his hoodie, and stumbled out of the door and into the hallway, where several other doors opened, almost all of them staff rooms. A couple other patients just stood in front of the doors anxiously, waiting, but Sirius followed some of the bolder ones and one of the nurses. He tiptoed, didn’t wanna interrupt, just wanted to make sure everything was okay.

It was. Or, it wasn’t.

Sirius could only spy over the shoulder of one of the nurses, but he saw enough. His parents had gotten Sirius a single room, but the others shared a room with at least one, if not four or five others. The Lupin kid, being the new one, shared with five. All of the other kids were staring at him from their beds, one was yelling angrily.

Lupin was in tears and he seemed totally out of it. A nurse was sitting in front of his bed, his wrist in her hand, softly speaking to him. She seemed to be one of the nice ones—Lupin was lucky. At least for tonight. He could see another nurse nearby, dressed in a disgustingly bright pink nightgown, simply watching. It almost seemed as though she was… waiting.

Sirius did not like the expression on her face, but when she turned around a bit and saw him, the weird watchful expression turned into something he liked even less. A smile.

He shuddered, hugging himself.

This night wasn’t exactly doing him any favors. Not that any nice was comfortable for Sirius Orion Black—not with the memories etched into his brain, and certainly not in a place like this. Then again, he supposed this day had done… something to him. Something to trigger a nightmare like this.

Of course, he had many nightmares; they were no stranger to him. But this one had been particularly nasty. And he hadn’t wanted to scream like this after waking up from one for a long time. It wasn’t the spiders. At least, he supposed it wasn’t the spiders—those little things had never really bothered him.

Maybe it was the fact that Regulus had been in it, that he’d been the one who… attacked him?

Sirius shook his head and squinted his eyes a little. No, he hadn’t really attacked him, he’d just talked. Words had left his mouth that were very familiar, nothing new, nothing shocking. Nothing that should leave him so terrified in his waking state.

Maybe it had been the spiders after all. Maybe he was just… particularly uncomfortable about these animals.

Was it possible to just suddenly develop a phobia? But the word phobia seemed too weird, too strange, too… strong. It didn’t feel like this nightmare was some sort of result of an anxiety like that.

Or was it?

“Alright, loves, nothing to see. Go back to bed, everyone. The bell will ring in a couple hours, you wanna be well rested, now don’t you?” It was the nurse that had been holding Lupin’s hand as he had woken up—not his hand, his wrist. She’d probably been taking his pulse. “Mr Black.”

He looked up, furrowing his brow. The hallway behind him had emptied, most of the patients having gone back to bed. Only the nice nurse and one of the security guards was still there. Somehow, the pink Lady must have left.

“I—” He hesitated, shaking his head. “No. I’m just Sirius.”

He didn’t even know where this came from. It just did, it left him, like a breath, and it actually even felt… good. He had to be more tired than he’d thought.

“Alright, dear. Well, you’re gonna have to go back to your room… Unless you need to talk to someone?” She was nice. Very nice. He didn’t trust this kind of niceness.

“It’s fine,” he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. “It’s fine. Sorry. Good night.”

“Goodnight,” the nurse said, seeming slightly confused, but she just let him leave without asking any more questions.

The hallway was abandoned as Sirius made his way back to his room, though he barely even noticed. He usually liked the emptiness, how quiet everything was. He would take his time and slow down, enjoy this rare moment of peace.

This time he just closed the door behind him and fell back into bed. He didn’t close his eyes immediately—didn’t dare to—and simply lay there, staring at the ceiling. A ray of moonshine was falling through the little window way above him, filling the room with a silverish, pale light. Ghostly. Again, Sirius usually loved these moments.

But now, all he could think about, all he could focus on, was that new kid, Lupin. Remus, that was his name. _What an irony, really_ , Sirius thought bitterly, _having an intense nightmare like this in the night of a full moon._

What must he have been thinking about to wake up like that? Sirius could understand nightmares, he barely had any nights that were peaceful, but he could normally control the way he reacted to them. Usually. He knew James sometimes still had nightmares about his grandfather dying, but he didn’t wake up screaming either.

Sirius rolled around, trying to close his eyes against all those thoughts flooding his mind, but it was useless. This entire day just had been too strange, and maybe, in a way, exhausting. Because he _was_ exhausted; it felt like his body was too heavy for him to even move anymore, like gravity was slowly pulling him under.

And yet, he could not sleep.

* * *

The next morning was excruciating in more than one way. It started with Sirius only having been able to get about one hour of sleep before he was cruelly ripped from his sleep by the bell ringing, proudly announcing breakfast.

He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head, quickly letting go of it just in case as he remembered the precious cargo stored inside of it. He forced himself through his morning routine, getting dressed and making the bed—(it really was a strange sort of obsessive behaviour he had developed at Grimmauld Place, always having everything look perfectly fine)—, then, after checking once more if the glass shard couldn’t be seen, he left his room and strolled through the hallways towards the Great Hall where all meals were served.

He scanned the room as he entered, quickly locking eyes with the new kid. He grabbed a tray and his food, then swiftly moved through the labyrinth of tables and slid onto the chair next to Lupin.

“Good morning,” he said cheerily, poking his crumbled eggs. “So, I take it you’ve had a rough night?”

“W-what’s it t-to y-you?” The boy muttered, but he seemed a little anxious about it.

Sirius shrugged. “Nothing, just… I thought it’s common courtesy to ask. Or well, I guess I didn’t exactly _ask_ , did I? My mistake, forgive me.”

He saw the other boy blush ever so slightly, and grinned. Mission accomplished. That boy certainly needed some color in his face. He was even paler than the day before, if that was even a possibility, and the dark smudges under his eyes produded strongly against his white skin. His amber eyes seemed dull and droopy.

“Why d-d-do you s-sit with m-me?”

“Huh?” Sirius looked up from staring at Lupin, finding his eyes were resting on him. He flashed him a radiant smile. “Well, there’s no one else who’s interesting around here, is there?”

To his worry, Lupin’s eyes darkened and he looked away. “So, I’m interesting t-to you?” He said, anger showing on his face. “I’m not some sort of animal you can just experiment on, you know? If you just think I’m interesting because I’m weird or because—because I had a fucking nightmare, you can just leave right the hell now.”

Interesting indeed. He’d stopped stuttering. Sirius shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. And it’s not exactly like nightmares are fascinating. I’ve got a bunch of my own, I don’t care.”

That was wrong. He did care. He didn’t want this boy to suffer the way he did.

“O-Oh.” Lupin blushed again, anxiously biting his lip. “I-I’m s-sorry, then, I—I d-don’t really…”

“It’s fine.” Sirius shrugged and gave him another smile. “I get it. You’re new in this place, it’s scary, it’s uncomfortable. There’s a lot of people. It’s… a lot, just in general, to take in.”

They fell silent again, but this time it was a better sort of silence. Then, after a while, Lupin spoke up again, quietly, nervously, just above a whisper.

“How… h-how long did it take you until you felt like… l-like b-being h- _here_ … in t-this p-place, is… okay?”

Sirius felt his muscles tense and his throat constrict. Should he… should he lie to this boy?

“I… don’t think—” He started, then interrupted himself. _“Whoa,”_ he said, grabbing the little box with pills on Lupin’s tray. “What the… That’s… a lot they’re giving you. Diazepam? D’you have anxiety?”

Lupin snatched the pill box back and Sirius let out a quiet sigh.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… Honestly, in this place, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone gave you meds like these just to keep you quiet.”

Lupin shook his head. “N-no. I… I’m s-sorry. I j-just d-d-don’t like p-people inter-interfering like that.”

Sirius shrugged again. “That’s valid. I’ll stop.”

Lupin didn’t answer, just hugged himself and Sirius couldn’t help but notice how _adorable_ he looked. Probably a wrong thought in this place.

“Soo,” he started up, flashing Lupin the best grin he had, “how much free time do you have today? Cause I bet it’s a lot and someone’s gotta show you around—”

“Mr Black.”

He shuddered at the name, at the sickly sweet voice who’d said it, and closed his eyes against a wave of despair and disgust. He knew what was coming next, he could get through it easily. It worked every week. He just had to gather all the control not to spit those people right in the face every time.

He looked up at the nurse, one of the not so nice ones—Sirius was sure she was married to one of the more brute-like security guards—and forced a smile on his lips.

“Yes, Mrs?”

“You’re on schedule today and you’re already late.” She tutted a bit, like she was disappointed. “And you’re not supposed to eat before your appointments.”

Since when was that a rule? “Riight. Totally forgot, sorry.” He turned to look at Lupin, who was frowning a bit. “See ya later.”

He followed the nurse who didn’t even wait until he got up through the hall and into a corridor with way too many closed doors. He already knew the way by now, and didn’t wait for the nurse to show him; simply opened the door and strolled in, taking a seat on the chair he knew was his.

Except, this time, something was different.

The first thing he realised was off, was the smell. It was sweet, in the most sickening of ways, and he almost had to hold his breath until he got used to it. Then the color of the chair in front of him. It was pink. Just in general, the room seemed to have changed a bit.

Then the door opened a second time and a woman dressed in pink slithered into the room, smiling down at him. She wasn’t very tall, a bit plump, and had a face like a toad. A very mean, ugly toad.

“Good morning, Mr Black,” she whistled in her high, screechy voice. “I know you must wonder where your usual doctor is, but I’m afraid he got the flue. He’s rather old and wants to take a couple weeks off, just to be sure. As for now, I will take over his work.”

“A couple weeks,” Sirius repeated. “How will it take more than one to recover from the flue? Which, by the way, it’s not even flue season. Who are you, again?”

The woman smiled again, obviously not taken aback by his questions.

“My name is Dolores Umbridge,” she said. “Shall we begin?”


	4. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning!
> 
> For homophobia and slurs concerning homosexuality, along with being gay being referred to as a 'sickness'.
> 
> Also, some hurt

Sirius recognized Dolores Umbridge from three instances of his time being in this loony bin.

He recognized her as one of the women in the staff room talking about Lupin by both her voice and her name—Dolores, not really usual.

He’d seen her twice, one time afterwards, in hallway the other night when Remus had had that nightmare that had woken him up screaming. And one time even before that, not long after Sirius had been committed. He hadn’t really been sure beforehand, but he was now.

He remembered when he left his room, how she’d been sitting in front of a little girl with dirty blond hair and very pale eyes, giving her an apple, smiling sweetly at her.

She was giving him that very same sickeningly sweet smile that churned in his stomach and actually burned in his eyes. It was revolting. Which… probably was a good way to start the therapy that was on his program, the one he was at right now.

“Why are _you_ the one filling in for Doctor Kettleburn?” Sirius asked, crossing his arms in front of him. He wanted to seem defiant, angry, maybe a tad evil. But mostly he was just worried. Maybe even a tiny bit inside of him that he’d never admit to… was scared.

“Well, for one, our place is criminally understaffed,” Umbridge said, blinking rapidly, as if the very question itself offended her in some way. “Someone has to take on those… tasks? And besides, I didn’t mind stepping up,” she added with a sunny smile, “I have always liked this line of work. I have an affinity for it, one might say.”

Sirius scoffed. “How come?”

“Well, you see…,” Umbridge said slowly, sitting down in the pink armchair in front of him. “Many people in this ward like the children they teach and… form. They don’t have the stomach or strength to do what’s necessary in this work in order for it to succeed. They cannot do what is necessary for these misguided and foul children to get back to the right way of things… the way things are supposed to be.”

A shiver ran down Siriu’s spine at her words. The way she was talking just seemed… sick.

“To do what is necessary?” He repeated and Umbridge nodded happily. “What kind of things would that be?”

“Well…” Umbridge sighed heavily, standing up and surrounding Sirius’s chair to get to the desk behind him. Doctor Kettleburn had always kept his notepads there, sometimes his lunch bag that had given off the strange odor of fat cheese and pork. “I know that my collegue has done his work the way he thought was good, and I… _suppose_ in his own way, he was doing his very best.”

She supposed? His best? What the fuck was going on? Sirius did not like this woman, and he did not feel comfortable in this room. If it were up to him, he’d run out of the room, flee, escape, go… somewhere, except there was nowhere to go. He couldn’t go anywhere, cause this place was like a prison.

Sirius had always felt like it was a jail, his own personal hell. He knew he’d never get out on his own. But now there wasn’t even a place to hide.

  
He felt trapped.

“Now, I have some other ideas… ideas that may seem… unorthodox, maybe, a bit, but they have proven successful in the past and I am sure, my dear, that I can heal you from what seems to be ailing you so much,” Umbridge added, searching for something in the depths of the desk’s drawers.

“What seems to be ailing me?” Sirius could have spat in her face, and he actually felt like he would, just for a second. “What’s ailing me, in your opinion? Do you… see something that is wrong with me? Do I need ‘healing’, Ma’am?”

Umbridge curled her lips into a soulless smile.

“Why, your unnatural and deviant attraction to teenagers of the same gender, of course,” she said, as if it were the most silly thing she’d ever heard of. “It’s wrong to feel like this, let alone act on it!”

“Well, lucky for you then, I have never acted on any instinct I have except hunger—hang on, that might be a lie,” Sirius added smoothly, his thoughts involuntarily going back to that summer. “So I’m sure we’ll all be much happier if I just leave.” Right the fuck now.

“No, I don’t think so, dear,” Umbridge said slowly, turning around, an apparat in her hand Sirius couldn’t quite identify. “Your parents have given permission for a certain kind of treatment to fix you, and I intend to bring you back to the right path, you know… _straighten_ you.”

Did that wicked toad even know what she was talking about?

“I don’t think—” Sirius hesitated, his gaze flicking over to the door. He didn’t really know what to do… He wanted to run, flee, escape, hide forever, but he knew exactly if he did that, it might end in being drugged up and shut in solitary.

And he definitely didn’t want that.

“This is quite a useful little machine,” Umbridge now said, setting the thing in her hand on the table next to Sirius’s chair. “And it will help me in helping you. You’ll take this end of it—” She pressed a little thing quite like a thick sort of needle into his hand, “—and I’m in control of it.”

Sirius’s fingers immediately closed around the object in his hand. It was metal, cool against his skin. Much like his glass shard. Maybe that was something he could cling onto, when this evil monstrous woman started talking about how wrong he was for loving someone of the same gender.

He almost rolled his eyes.

“Now, let’s begin, shall we?” Umbridge set down on the armchair in front of him, rifling through her bag until she took some papers out of it, straightening them out on her lap. Sirius couldn’t quite see what was on them, he was way too distracted by the sudden buzzing sound that filled the room. It sounded like a hundred flies, or like—

The wicked toad held up the first piece of paper—a picture. It was a boy on the beach, only in his trunks, eyes closed with a gentle smile on his lips.

Then a short, sharp pain shot through Sirius and he flinched violently, immediately letting go of the object he’d been holding in his hand.

— _electricity._

He stared at the metal object on the ground in front of him, shocked, then up at Umbridge. She had the most pleasant of smiles on her lips, her eyes twinkling in a dangerous sort of way.

“Yes, dear?”

“I—” Sirius swallowed harshly. “I don’t think that’s—”

“Oh no, don’t worry,” Umbridge chuckled lightly, obviously taking pleasure in this situation. “Like I said, your parents asked us to fix you, they signed some papers. It’s all good, all legal here.”

All legal? Sirius could have screamed.

Umbridge stood up, scuffling forward and picking up the object Sirius had dropped—one he now knew was connected to a source of electricity Umbridge could control.

“I think you dropped this, dear,” she said and put it back into his hand. “Now, shall we continue? We have already lost a precious amount of our time by me explaining to you that I’m your new therapist—and you with those awfully nosey questions.”

Sirius blinked rapidly. Every single nerve in his body screamed at him, wanting… no, begging him to run away. But he couldn’t. Not only would this get him into a lot of trouble, it also seemed like his body was… petrified. He felt like his limbs were lead, much like the first time they’d given him so many drugs. He just could not move and it was like the chair he was sitting in was a new center of gravity, pulling him down, down, way under until he drowned.

* * *

Lupin came into the reading room a while after, when Sirius finally got out. He hadn’t expected to even see him that soon, but after that awful time with Umbridge, all he wanted was a quiet place where no one expected him and no one would look for him—and apparently Lupin had the same wish.

Sirius growned loudly, face first falling onto the ratty couch and pulling a pillow over his head, flinching when the muscles in his hand spasmed. That evil… _bitch_ , she’d shown him a lot of pictures. And she’d obviously, definitely enjoyed it.

All he wanted was to fall asleep and never wake up.

Or, at least wake up when there was food and the chance of pudding for desert.

“A-are y-you all—allright?” A tiny voice spoke up and Sirius let out the single most humiliating screech of horror. He fought to get back up, hoping he didn’t have a cushion face.

Lupin was standing in the doorway, hugging himself tightly, anxious amber eyes staring at him.

“I—uuh…” Sirius started, then stopped. “What are you doing here? No one goes here.”

“I-I’m s-s-sorry if I inter-interrupted you in s-something,” the boy stuttered nervously, blushing a little. “I j-just… I thought…”

“No, no, it’s fine. Come right in.” Sirius grinned, making a sort of grand gesture as if he was introducing Lupin to his own home. Much like Walburga and Orion sometimes did. “We don’t have much here, but… uuh… we have a ratty old couch. And we have… an armchair over there, and I think we used to have a carpet, but… well, apparently, not anymore.”

Lupin actually smiled a little and Sirius grinned happily. No one in this place ever smiled when he made a joke, not even the nurses. He’d maybe gotten used to it a little, but he missed being understood at least for a minute a day. Besides, he liked making people laugh. He used to make Reg laugh a lot, until Walburga got angry with him about the kind of jokes he pulled.

“ _Are you trying to ruin your little brother, too?”_ She had hissed. _“Do you want no one in our house to have a chance at being respected by our friends and neighbors? You have embarassed us, don’t spoil your brother like this, too. It should be enough by now, don’t you think?”_

The smile on Sirius’s face quavered a bit, but he quickly caught himself.

“So… what are you here for?” He asked. “Who are you trying to escape from?”

Lupin just shook his head, coming into the room and quickly closing the door behind him. Instead of going to a couch or a chair however, he went to the shelves on the opposite of the room, letting his fingers dance over the broken backs of the older books.

“No one,” he said. “I j-just p-prefer the company of b-books rather than that of h-h-humans.”

Well, now that was something they could agree on. Sirius had never had a great interest for books—having been forced to read books about politics and all that at home—but if he had to chose between them and the people in this place, he’d read a billion books.

Except, he supposed Lupin preferred books over humans just in general. He would have offered him to leave so the boy could be alone with the books, except Sirius feared if he moved some more, his muscles would spasm and completely leave him. And he didn’t exactly wanna fall down on the floor in front of a cute boy like that.

Oops, he’d thought of Lupin as cute. Would that justify skipping the formal part and just calling him by his first name?

_Look at that, you ugly toad. I’m gonna flirt this boy to death, just to spite you._

No, that was probably the wrong way of building a friendship between them. He had to at least befriend him, he couldn’t mess this up. He didn’t really want to. There was something about Lupin—Remus, that just somehow fascinated him.

“So, if that’s the case,” he said, still leaning back against the pillows on the couch, not really trusting his own legs to support his body right now, “what’s your favorite book? Wait, do you even have one?”

“W-why would you t-think that I-I d-don’t?” Lup—Remus asked, actual curiosity in his voice.

Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve heard many people who love books can’t decide on what’s their favorite, or it comes to a draw. I know my… my brother certainly feels that way,” he added somewhat bitterly, not able to suppress the frustration in his voice.

Remus frowned a bit, but he didn’t ask about it. “W-well, I _do_ have a f-favorite book, actually,” he said, and if Sirius wasn’t completely mistaken, there was a tease in his voice. “D-do y-y-you have one?”

Sirius grinned. “I don’t like a lot of books. I like some. What’s your favorite?” When Remus shook his head, he added: “Oh, come on, it’s not like there’s anyone near. We’re pretty much alone in this entire hallway, I think.” To his surprise, Remus blushed at his words. “I won’t laugh, whatever it is.”

“I-I-It’s not that y-you’d l-laugh,” Remus said, fiddling with the hem of his sleeve. “I j-just d-doubt that you’d even know the b-book, and besides, it’s k-k-kinda weird to share this with s-s-someone I’ve j-just met in a m-mental hospital.”

Sirius cringed back slightly. He knew this place pretty well, he knew what it was about, but it was still uncomfortable to hear its actual name sometimes, especially on days like these. Especially after he’d been told several times how loving guys was a sickness and that he had to be _cured_.

“I can see why it might be something personal,” he said, careful not to let show just how much the word had hurt him. “Look, I’ll trade you. How about you answer the question about what’s your favorite book and then you can ask me something as well.”

“A-anything I w-want?” Remus asked, and Sirius had the weird feeling of being lured into a trap he had built for himself.

He nodded nonetheless, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he saw a content smile cross Remus’s face. “Okay, f-fine,” he said. “My f-favorite book is ‘The P-picture of Dorian Gray’.”

Sirius could have screamed in laughter at the implied reference. Of course, that didn’t mean anything; having the favorite book be about three gay characters written by a gay author didn’t immediately mean anything other than the fact that it was incredibly well-written, but the irony was too good.

“N-now it’s my t-turn,” Remus said, looking at him challengingly. “A q-question for a question. W-why are you here?”

Sirius paled a bit, then forced an easy smile on his lips. “My parents,” he said, and it wasn’t even a lie. “Why are you?”

Remus shrugged. “My parents.” He slid down the wall and sat on the ground cross-legged, hugging a book to his chest. “I think they just couldn’t d-deal with m-me anymore.”

Sirius growled lowly. He hated parents like those. At least his just hated him, they didn’t pretend to love him and then shipped him off to a place with no chances of getting out again. Although, of course, he didn’t know why Remus was even here. He could just as well be able to leave after some good, intense therapy sessions.

“My t-turn again,” Remus said. “How l-long have you been here?”

Sirius hesitated, counting the weeks in his head. “About three months, I think? Time can get very strange around here; it should be Christmas some time soon, right?” Remus nodded. “Right, it should be near December by now… Okay, it’s my turn now. What’s your full name?”

“R-Remus John Lupin,” Remus said, blushing. “And yes, I know how weird that name is. What’s yours?”

“Sirius… Orion Black,” he hastily added. He _really_ did not like his names—one of them being his Dad’s and the other his family name.

“Sirius Orion,” Remus repeated, as if trying to memorize it. “Stars. Is that c-common in your f-family?”

Sirius nodded, a strange pain in his chest constricting his breathing. “Stars and Constellations. I have a cousin named Andromeda, she’s a wonderful person. And my… my brother’s name is Regulus. It goes all the way through our family.”

“That’s a lovely t-tradition,” Remus said, but Sirius just scoffed. He didn’t exactly think of his family as lovely, but he didn’t wanna elaborate on that and quickly skipped the topic.

They danced around some of the most typical topics for a while (favorite subject—Remus apparently loved history and literature—, favorite biscuits—Sirius was shocked to learn that the other boy would prefer oatmeal raisin to plain chocolate chip cookies), until it was Sirius’s turn again and he didn’t know what else to ask except for:

“What’s your greatest fear?”

Sirius immediately felt it had been a wrong question. Remus recoiled sharply, though he didn’t leave the room in a hurry, so that had to count for something. However, he did not talk. At all. He seemed… withdrawn.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke up again. “That wasn’t… I guess it’s not really a topic you’ll wanna—”

“N-no, it’s f-fine, I j-just… I—”

“Look, how about that,” Sirius proposed. “I’ll go first, and if you then think you can trust me enough and wanna share yours, then that’s great. And if not, that’s also fine. Just… Don’t laugh about my fear,” he added to lighten the mood.

Remus chuckled nervously. “I-if y-y-you’re okay w-with it…”

“Sure.” Sirius still hesitated, rubbing his hands on his trousers. He felt kinda weird and sweaty and… exposed. Was this what it felt like to get naked with someone? Cause if it was, he was seriously rethinking his sexuality. “I used to… not really be afraid of things. But… being in this place, being stuck here, like in some sort of… _jail_ —” He shuddered involuntarily. “I’ve gotten afraid. I’m afraid of losing myself here, of being forgotten—lost, and never to be found.”

Remus stayed silent for a bit and Sirius averted his gaze, his cheeks burning. This was… strange. He’d never talked about anything this openly before.

“The r-reason why I d-didn’t answer at first w-wasn’t b-because I d-d-didn’t want to,” Remus then said, softly. “It’s j-just that I d-don’t actually _know_ what I—I’m afraid of.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m… h-here—p-partially, because of that. I h-have a l-lot of anxieties and unexp-plained phobias. I’m s-scared of s-spiders, of h-h-holes, of clowns, of… of a l-lot of t-things. And it w-won’t g-go away, they t-tried ev-everything.”

Sirius frowned a little at that. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Remus shook his head. “B-but what you s-said makes s-sense. I’m also a-afraid of b-being forgotten. Of n-no one w-wanting anything t-to do with me.”

“Alright, well,” Sirius leaned forward on the couch with a subtle groan as his muscles ached and spasmed. He reached out. “How about we’ll be friends then? Then we can make sure none of us will be forgotten, and we’ll have someone who’s a definite proof that that fear is irrational.”

Remus stared at him, a smile tugging on his lips. “I h-highly doubt, professionally speaking, that some of my phobias are even unr-reasoned, but yes. I think I’d like that.” He crawled towards him, still on the floor, taking his hand.

“Friends.”

“Friends.”


	5. it's natural

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, trigger warnings for slurs about homosexuality, and some intense talk about how being gay is "a sickness".
> 
> I... did not have fun writing that.

This was an incredible feeling for sure.

Sirius knew what it was like to have a close friend—James felt like more than that, actually, like a brother, and he loved him—but still, this was different.

Being… actual friends with someone, not outside this place but in it, being understood, having someone close who would reassure Sirius that his fears were, at least partially, without reason, was… amazing. And this actual friend being Remus made it even so much better.

The kid had actually quite an interesting humor, he was more than just the typical book-worm intelligent,  he was  _ smart _ .  He knew things without having to think about them twice, he  knew what things he had to say to get what he wanted—to achieve what he’d wanted to achieve. If he wanted to comfort someone—Remus had apparently made friends with a little girl called Mary MacDonald and she was a blubbering mess more than just once—he knew exactly what to do.

Sirius would never be able to do that. He didn’t even know what to do if he saw someone crying. He once confronted Remus about that ability and the other boy had looked surprised.

“D-Do y-y-you think I’m g-good at c-comforting people?” He repeated, as if he couldn’t quite believe what Sirius said. “H-huh. I d-don’t think that’s the c-case, actually. I f-f-feel really helpless and s-stupid. I j-just wanna help, b- b ut I’m terrified of d-doing something wrong, m-making it worse, you know?”

Sirius was amused as well as absolutely fascinated by the fact that Remus didn’t even know of the effect he had on people. It just added to his charm. Quite the lovely charm, that drew Sirius in, made him wanna hang out with him, all day every day.

Of course, they did spend as much time together as even possible in this place. Remus did have some therapy sessions, but mostly, they just seemed to forget him in this place—which certainly wasn’t helpful with the kind of fears he harbored. Sometimes he would spend hours on end in one room, trying to paint. A sight that was more than adorable.

Sirius on the other hand didn’t have as much time, and he hated it. He didn’t have the normal therapy sessions anymore, none alone other than the conversion therapy. Only sometimes, they would force him to attend a group session, but it wasn’t like he could talk about what really bothered him.

Because he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t… foul for being who he was, following his heart. But the toad would tell him so, every time he had to attend her sessions.

“Now, I have a feeling we’ve made some progress,” Umbridge trillered, smiling sweetly down at Sirius when she set the papers down she’d been holding up. More pictures. “Have you had any ill thoughts of late?”

_ What, other than ripping your head off and putting it on a spike? _

“No,” Sirius forced out between gritted teeth, his hand cramping around the object giving him little electric shocks whenever the ugly toad wanted it to happen. “I can’t say that I have ill thoughts.” He looked up and gave her a defiant grin. “Because they’re not ill.”

Umbridge sighed heavily, putting the pictures aside for good and reaching out. Sirius could barely stop himself from flinching back, but he managed. Just about.

“The pin, honey.”

She called it the pin, as if it could take away the cruelty connected to it if she gave it a harmless name. She also called him honey a lot. As if he were a little child that knew nothing, a kid that had to be raised in a certain way. Perhaps that’s what he was to her.

Sirius’s fingers were shaking as he forced them open and turned his hand, letting the ‘pin’ drop into hers. She smiled at him.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Now, let’s talk about what you just said. You said it isn’t ill. Do you wanna elaborate on that?”

Sirius really did not. Besides, he knew if he said anything, she would probably take him apart, piece by piece. He could take up with that, usually. He was used to that sort of emotional abuse, his parents had done it to him all the time. He was used to quite a bit more, too, but having to endure those sessions several days in a row, every time with her awful sickening smile, really wore his patience thin.

“Look at me, Mr Black,” Umbridge said in a low, sweet voice and even though he hated that name, hated what was connected with it, he just had to look up at her.  There was something else in her eyes that he just didn’t like. It was threatening, but… still, there was something else. “Now, tell me, what did you mean when you said your thoughts aren’t ill?  Did you actually not have them or is it because you’re convinced what you think and feel is right?”

Sirius didn’t want to answer. But he also really desperately wanted to wipe that smug grin off her face when he told her he might just be slowly falling in love, despite her constant struggles to avoid just such a thing. He took in a deep breath and steeled his nerves.

“They’re not wrong,” he repeated. “What I think… what I feel… It’s not wrong.”

Umbridge sighed, leaning back in her armchair and tapping a short, thick finger against her chin. “Really, you’re quite a troubling case,” she tutted, but it seemed more like she was talking to herself. “Of course, we’ve just started, it’s only been two weeks and I haven’t seen you every day. Maybe I should arrange for more meetings.”

Sirius tensed. God, please no.

“What do you feel, when you see these pictures?” Umbridge now asked, gesturing at the package of photos and drawings in her bag.

“Pain,” Sirius hissed.

“No, no.” Umbridge chuckled lightly, like that answer had actually amused her. “No, I don’t mean the physical reaction. I mean, what do you feel, inside of you? What are your thoughts about it?”

Sirius hesitated. Maybe he should answer correctly, maybe he should say something , just to repell her. “I don’t know, it’s not like you’re giving me much time to actually think, do you?” He snapped.

“Hm,” Umbridge said, tapping the finger against her chin again, as if in thought. “Maybe you’ve got a point.” She rifled through her bag, taking out a single picture and giving it to Sirius. “Look at it. Take your time. Tell me what you feel.”

“Why would I do that?” Sirius asked, but he took the photo and looked at it. It showed a boy, around his age, wearing extremely thin nets around his legs, short trousers and no shirt. He did not even want to know where those pictures came from. But he could not deny the tingling feeling inside his stomach that fluttered and tickled, as he kept looking at it. “Why would I tell you what I feel?”

“Because then I can fix you,” Umbridge said, leaning forward and staring at him intently, as if waiting for a certain reaction. “ If our work so far hasn’t done much for you, maybe I need to take a different path. If I know exactly your train of thoughts, maybe I can figure out what to do to make you right.”

Sirius thought he might throw up. “You can’t  _ fix _ me,” he growled. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“Now, but is this denial or are you actually convinced that what you feel is right?” Umbridge thought out loud. “Either way, I know how hard it can be to accept that something about you is wrong, that there’s something sick inside of you, something that needs to be burned out, cleansed, purged.”

Sirius just shook his head.

“I can help you if that’s the case. Having an affection like that is wrong, it’s foul, it’s sick.  It’s just not natural.” She sighed, in that high, disgusting voice. “ To fix you, to heal you, the first thing we have to do is make you realize just how wrong it is.  If you’re asking me”— _ I’m really not _ —“homosexuality never should have been legalized.”

“W-What?” Sirius couldn’t quite believe his ears. Of course, someone whose job it was to convert gay kids wouldn’t have the most developed opinions, but this… This was absurd.

“Yes, well, gays are criminals,” Umbridge said, shrugging, as if it was the most obvious and easiest thing in the universe. “It’s disgusting, it destroys civilization and culture—it damns their souls. With every time they commit such an unspeakable act, it breaks away pieces of their very being, it’s filthy. It’s just simply a flaw of humanity, it’s a… a form of degeneration of society. Unnatural. There’s not supposed to be such a thing in nature.”

“Well, it’s not like I  _ chose _ to be like this,” Sirius snapped, just seconds away from baring his teeth like a feral dog. Because that was most certainly what he felt like in that moment. An animal. Did that mean she was winning? Was that her doing? No. “If your beloved God really did create all of us and he created me like this, then shouldn’t you tell all those things to him?”

“Oh, sweetie, God doesn’t care what we do,” Umbridge said, wagging her short, thick finger in his face. “At least not in this very moment, I think he’s rather busy with other things. But that doesn’t change the fact that what you are doing, what you are thinking, is wrong, filthy, disgusting and sick.”

“ It’s not—” Sirius let out a low growl. “What century do you live in?”

Umbridge sighed, leaning back again. “I was really hoping this would help you at least some,” she said, sadness radiating off of her. Fake sadness. “I think, deep within you, you know that it’s wrong. That you should stop.”

Sirius bit his lip, not even bothering to answer. The truth was, sometimes he didn’t know what to say about all this. Being raised the way he was, with the parents he had, it had been hard enough to even figure out that the word ‘gay’ existed, let alone what it meant. It had taken Sirius forever to realize that, to him, boys were a lot more attractive than girls, and that the fluttering feeling in his stomach just meant that he was crushing on someone—not that something was wrong with him.

Except, when he found out what it meant, it had taken James several  months to convince Sirius that that was perfectly fine, normal, and great for someone to find out about their own identity. The little things Walburga and Orion had told Sirius about ‘the queers and fags’ had been awful, humiliating, degredating. How was it any kind of surprise that Sirius had been terrified about his own sexual orientation?

It was okay, was what James had told him over and over again. It was okay, it was fine.

And Sirius had come to terms with him being gay, he thought it was okay. He allowed himself sometimes to actually notice boys the way James openly talked about a pretty girl he saw. He allowed himself to enjoy that tingly feeling in the pit of his stomach when he found someone’s aesthetics pleasing.

So a lot of times, he was totally fine with his own sexual identity. Sometimes, in very rare moments and even then usually only when James was present, or the one starting it in the first place, he felt actually comfortable with it. Sometimes… proud.

But, if he was being honest, being in this place and having these sessions, rebelling against them time and again, was exhausting and… not very good for him. It took a lot of energy from him to keep fighting against those evil, intrusive thoughts; thoughts spoken aloud in her voice, in his mother’s voice, in all the voices he tried to escape when night fell.

Sometimes, after one of those sessions when he was especially tired and exhausted and felt drawn to dark thoughts, he would lie awake at night, stare at the ceiling colored by beams of moonshine, and keep telling himself that it was okay. That he was fine. That it wasn’t wrong.

Because other than that, other than James telling him  that it was completely fine, sometimes an unpleasant, unwelcome thought would flutter around in his mind, one that Umbridge would keep preying on until it became stronger than his  own  pride and dignity.

_ Maybe it’d just be better if I actually let them fix me. Maybe it would be better if I were normal. _

* * *

Umbridge let him go sooner that day, talking about how they’d made some progress—that Sirius really couldn’t see and hoped it wasn’t the case—and how they would maybe try a new way of working on things. A new angle, as she’d called it.

He was too exhausted to do much but trudge miserably into the reading room; his meeting point with Remus whenever one of them was waiting for the other after an appointment. It had become their ritual and Sirius found he felt better after those therapy sessions when Remus talked about some random things with him, and the nightmares in those nights were less cruel.

“Hey there,” Remus said from the couch, looking up from the book he’d been reading in. He had his legs drawn close, the open book resting on his knees, looking too cute for life. “H-how are you?”

They had come to an agreement not to ask a question like that after their re spective sessions, because they never felt like talking about it, and none of them wanted to share what exactly was talked about in their appointments.  So if Remus asked a question like that, something was either very wrong… or Sirius just looked like beaten crap.

He supposed it was the latter. That weird talk from Umbridge and the many little electric shocks whenever she showed him a picture were tiring and exhausting and he was hurting all over.

Strangely, it felt a little like he was hurting on the inside, too.

“Uuugh,” Sirius just made, slouching to one of the armchairs and slumping down on it, drawing his legs close and hugging himself. “Just… don’t ask. Did I miss anything? What are you reading?”

Remus mumbled something incoherent and Sirius reached out with his foot, slightly nudging him. “Come on, show meee.” He pouted a little to show him how he was just slightly kidding and Remus chuckled quietly.

“F-fine.” He held up the book, the cover clear and legible for Sirius.

“’ Tales of the City’,” Sirius read out loud, letting out a incredulous laugh. “How do you even get those books here? I mean those… Books like these, I doubt they carry a message this place wants to teach.”

Remus frowned slightly, letting the book slide back onto his lap. “W-what d-do you m-mean by that?”

Shit. Sirius hadn’t told Remus what kind of therapy he was in, but he’d suspected that the other boy would know anyways. This place was known for being discreet more than anything, but it did have a certain unavoidable reputation.

“You… you don’t know?” He asked, just to be sure. Remus simply shrugged. “Alright, but if I tell you, you can’t freak out. You do not wanna freak out in this place. And you’ll have to answer my question afterwards, how you got that book. Because they might not know about Oscar Wilde, but ‘Tales of the City’ is more than just obvious.”

Remus made a face, but he shrugged again. “F-fine. I’ll tell you, n-now what’s t-the problem w-with those b-books? Why c-couldn’t I f-f-find them in the l-library here?”

Sirius looked around cautiously before he answered. “This place… this mental hospital has a certain reputation. Of course the public doesn’t know much about those things, but this can’t be secret. It’s… one of it’s centers is conversion therapy, Remy.” Remus paled and Sirius gritted his teeth. “I’m sorry, I really figured you’d know.”

Remus fiddled with the page of his book, his fingers shaking ever so slightly. “Is this what you’re going through?” He asked after a while. “Is this the kind of therapy you have; are you here because you’re… y-you’re gay?”

Sirius flinched back. Remus sounded absolutely disgusted, like it was the worst thing in the world. He had thought, because Remus was reading those books, that maybe he knew, that… maybe he just didn’t care. But they way he’d just said it sounded almost like it was the most horrible thing he could imagine.

Maybe he had parents similar to his?

“I… I mean,” Sirius began, looking down at his shirt and beginning to tug at the hem. “I mean I’m… I’m not… I just—”

“That’s repulsive,” Remus seethed, getting up abruptly, the book on his lap falling down to the floor. “Who even allows stuff like that anymore? It’s disgusting, I mean… d-did your parents actually  _ allow _ this? Did they put you in here j-just because you’re  _ gay _ ?”

A billion things shot through Sirius’s head, including the amusement at the fact that Remus didn’t seem to have a problem with his talking when he was angry, like now. But the only thing he could actively think of, actually feel right now, was relief. Pure, blessed relief.

He wasn’t disgusted by Sirius. He didn’t think being gay was gross.

He was just angry.

“Well, obviously it’s not the only thing why I’m here, and I’m sure they made up some other reasons just to lock me in here,” he explained as quickly as possible, relief and happiness at the kind of freedom he felt, flooding his thoughts and flushing out all the bad things. “But mainly they’re trying to make it right, you know. Fix me.”

“ Fix it.  _ Fix it? _ ”  Remus seemed like he would lose it. “How are you… h-how is that…?”

“I know,” Sirius said gently, to his own surprise way calmer now. It was like all his anger just left him, all at once, like a gust of wind knocking it out of him. “ It’s okay, just… very tiring. Don’t get too mad, these people will not hesitate drugging you up or putting you into solitary. Maybe even both.” Remus growled and Sirius reached out, grabbing his sleeve. “Do not get angry. Look, it’s… it’s not like they’ll actually be able to fix anything—”

“There’s n-nothing  _ to _ fix,” Remus hissed sharply and Sirius nodded softly.

“Exactly. So all we gotta do is wait and make sure I don’t start doubting myself.” He chuckled. “I’m just… It makes me very tired and kinda… sore—”

“Sore?” Remus repeated, frowing.

Sirius bit his lip, having said something he didn’t intend to have said. He could not tell Remus what was actually going on, the other boy would lose it. And he did not want to be responsible for him being locked in solitary.

“Can you just… I don’t know. Hearing all the time how being gay is unnatural and a flaw makes me kinda tired, can we… talk about something else now?”

Remus hesitated. “It’s n-not,” he then said. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. 

Sirius’s muscles spasmed and he bit back a groan. “What do you mean?” He asked, shifting a little so he would be in a more comfortable position.

“That it’s unn-natural,” Remus explained. “It’s a-actually v-very much natural. Y-you just h-have to l-look at animals to get your p-proof.”

For some reason, that made Sirius’s heart beat faster. “It is?”

“Y-yes.” Remus nodded. “ M-many races of animals h-have homosexual p-partners. T-they’re n-needed in n-nature for the c-case that a cub or p-puppy is orphaned, or if t-the pack w-won’t have it. The g-gay couples adopt t-them. T-they’re just n-needed. They have a  _ purpose _ .”

O ddly, that fact made Sirius feel very warm, soothing a little of the ache in his muscles and the hurting inside of him. The two sat in silence for a bit, before Sirius spoke up again. “You still haven’t told me where you got that book from.”

Remus blushed slightly. “One of t-the boys in my room m-managed to smuggle it in somehow. He f-figured it m-might help me s-sleep better if I r-read beforehand.” He looked at his toes at that and Sirius remembered the nightmare Remus had had the first night after arriving. “His n-name is P-Peter. He s-seems n-nice, maybe you’ll l-like him, too.”

“Sure,” Sirius said, grinning. “I guess the more the merrier, right?”

Remus smiled at him and then returned to his reading, leaving Sirius to his feelings. He supposed what he should be feeling was happiness at the fact that there were more people out there who could make good company. He should feel relieved at the fact that someone was being nice to Remus, helping him with his nightmares.

But really, all he could feel was a deep, nagging jealousy.


	6. Peter Pettigrew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> description of a dead body (very light though)

Obviously, jealousy should be the last thing on his mind, what with everything that was going on. And after meeting Peter, Sirius was pretty sure there was nothing to be jealous of. He’d never met someone with such a straight energy around them—not even James, who wouldn’t ever shut up about Evans.

Not that Sirius wasn’t happy about his best friend’s relationship with the girl he’d been pining after since they were partnered up in Biology in sixth grade.  But, hanging around with Sirius for long enough, even he had made some comments about one or two guys.

Peter on the other hand was just flat out straight. He basically radiated it off him.

“Soo, you’re Sirius, right? A pleasure to meet ya!” He waved at him, a wide grin on his face. “I’ve been wondering when I’d get to be introduced! Remus couldn’t stop telling me about you.”

Sirius raised a brow involuntarily, grinning a bit. Remus blushed and then shrank down in his chair, as if trying to simply disappear. Sirius stared at Peter with a bit more curiosity now. Apparently he was nice enough to give Remus something to read if he couldn’t sleep, and Remus did seem to like him, so why the heck not give it a try.

“Yeah. Hi.” Sirius slid on the chair next to Remus and in front of Peter. When he’d come into the Great Hall for breakfast, this boy had already been sitting there, talking fast and happily. “You’re Peter, I take it.”

Peter nodded enthusiastically, picking at his food. Sirius let his gaze sweep over him and noticed he didn’t have as many pills in his box as he and Remus did. Whatever he was here for, it had to be something better than conversion treatment.

“ How long have you known Remus?” He asked and Sirius looked up, feeling somewhat caught.

“Uhm, we kinda met the day he arrived, which you obviously did as well.” Sirius forced himself to look away and start pealing the banana. “Remy told me you’ve given him a book after he first couldn’t sleep?”

Remus blushed even more at that and Sirius bit his lip. Obviously, the other boy didn’t like it when they talked about his nightmare, which of course he couldn’t blame him for. He just couldn’t help feeling so weirdly… agitated.

“ Yeah, I mean… my mom has that issue as well, and she tends to sleep better when she read a couple pages of a good book, so I figured trying it out wouldn’t hurt, right?” Peter smiled. “I… really can’t stay long, I have therapy in about ten minutes and the room I have it in is, like, multiple corridors away.”

Sirius shrugged and reached out. “Alright, well. It was nice meeting you.”

Peter hesitated, staring at Sirius’s offered hand. “I… uhm, sorry. I really gotta get going—maybe we could meet up later though? It’s not like there’s a lot to do in this place, so…” He chuckled weakly.

Sirius frowned, but pulled back. “Sure.”

He watched him leave in a hurry, his curiosity piqued, though he couldn’t quite tell if it was the good or the bad kind. At the very least, he could tell there was something about this boy that didn’t quite sit right with him. He couldn’t explain, couldn’t even really lay a finger on it, but there was something… off about him.

“Y-you okay?” Remus spoke up, ripping him from his thoughts.

“Huh?” Sirius looked up, seeing that Remus had recovered a little from his moment of embarrassment. He was still tugging at his sleeves and seemed flushed, but at least he was sitting upright again. If Sirius thought about it like that, the blushing actually became Remus quite well. He liked seeing color return to the other boy’s face; it seemed to happen so rarely.

Not that Remus looked ill, per say, he just didn’t look entirely healthy, either.

“You’re making a weird f-face. Is everything a-all right? D-did you n-not like him?” There was something like fear, maybe some sort of disappointment in his voice, and Sirius’s heart clenched at that.

“No, don’t worry. It’s fine. I was just… confused, as to why he refused to shake my hand.”

That… wasn’t exactly what confused him so much about Peter, but at least it wasn’t a lie.

“Oh, P-Pete has t-touch aversion,” Remus explained quickly. “M-much like m-me, except in h-his case, there’s a b-better explanation for it. He h-has g-germaphobia.”

“Oh. Huh.” Sirius frowned. “Didn’t know it can get bad enough for someone to have to visit a place like this.”

“You a-always s-say that,” Remus remarked, cocking his head.

“What?”

“A p-place l-like this. W-why d-do you call it t-that way?” He seemed genuinely curious. Just, interested.

Sirius shrugged, feeling strangely uncomfortable. “I don’t know.” He chewed on his lower lip, trying and failing to come up with a good explanation. “I just… I don’t feel like its actual name is… quite right. You know?”

“Like it’s failing the actual r-requirements of a mental hospital?” Remus asked gently, and Sirius nodded. “I g-get it. I w-wouldn’t c-call it by it’s actual name if I w-were you, I guess.”

Sirius picked up his spoon, rifling through the oatmeal. “What do you mean?”

“ You know, being h-here because of the reasons you are?” Remus lowered his voice, but Sirius could still clearly hear his anger. “B-being t-treated t-the way you are, simply b-b-because you’re—”

Sirius shook his head. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” he said. “And please, please, whatever you do, don’t get angry or loud. It’s not clever in this place, believe me. I’ve learned the hard way.”

“ F-fine.” Remus let out a low growl. “B-but that doesn’t mean I have to l-like it.”

“Never said that.” Sirius smirked at him. “Now, come on. Do you have to be anywhere today?”

Remus blushed—again!—and Sirius’s stomach twisted a little at the sight.

“N-no, not really,” he said. “I h-have been offered to go into t-the drawing r-room and p-paint, but I don’t have to g-go there. Maybe we could h-hang out together. W-why, do you n-not have… a therapy session today?”

“Funny enough, no.” Sirius pushed aside the oatmeal and took the pills he had been described. Nothing major—nothing that could help with what they actually wanted to treat him for—just something to ‘cool him down’, as some of the nurses called it when he asked them why he was still taking them, even after having been released from solitary. He supposed it was to keep him drugged always just enough. Other than that, he could not fathom a possible reason as to why they would waste these ressources on him.

“R-really?” Remus sounded so hopeful at that, it kinda hurt a little.

“Yeah, that wicked toad said something about how she wanted to change our sessions up a bit? Maybe she just wants to give it time to work, I don’t bloody know, and I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to see her.”  Sirius grinned in the brightest of ways, wishing he could simply smoothe the frown on Remus’s face away. He didn’t want him to worry.

Especially not because of him.

Remus still didn’t seem convinced, so Sirius leaned forward, looking into those amber eyes—almost making his knees wobbly and soft. If he hadn’t been sitting down, he was sure he’d just fall to the floor right there and then.

“Look, don’t worry about it, okay?” He smiled at him. “It’s fine. You said it yourself, it’s not something they can… fix, so we don’t have to worry about that, don’t we? And if we realize it’s getting hard for me, I still have you.”

“ But it’s  _ barbaric _ ,” Remus hissed, barely even holding back the anger pent up inside of him. “What they’re doing, it’s not… it’s not normal.”

Sirius sighed, looking around a little worriedly. He didn’t want Remus to just lose it, not now, not in the middle of the hall, during breakfast. Not in a place where guards could just easily hold him to the ground, drug him up and lock him up in solitary, stripped of all his possessions, dignity—and clothes.

He suppressed a shudder.

“I know, okay?” He reached out without thinking, laying his own hand atop of Remus’s. He felt him flinch ever so slightly; he saw Remus squeeze his eyes shut a little, and immediately pulled back. “Sorry. I forgot. I’m just saying… We know what’s happening, and I know it isn’t right. That’s okay. I’m… I’m pretty sure it won’t take much longer till I—we get out of here.” God, he really, really hated lying. And lying to Remus felt so much more wrong than anything else.

“How would you know that?” Remus pressed. “You can’t know that, right? I mean… these places are kinda designed for relatives to just drop someone off and never take them back.”

Sirius reeled back in shock. He knew that was the way he saw things, but he also knew that it wasn’t a healthy way of perceiving the world and that most of this was his parents’ fault.

“I… I have a friend who promised he’d work something out. And as soon as I’m out, I’ll make damn sure you’ll be out, too,” he admitted. He didn’t like pulling James into this, but he couldn’t just not tell him.

“A friend?”

“Yeah.” Sirius shifted uncomfortably. “ I don’t know what he wants to do, but I trust him. He’ll figure something out, and then it’s ‘bye bye loony bin.’ Whoo!”

Remus actually chuckled at that,  and Sirius grinned in content .  He liked seeing him laugh; he liked being the one to make him smile. It was a good feeling.  _ And you can’t stop that, so fuck off, you ugly toad. _

“So, you’ll trust me on that, right?” He repeated. “You trust me that I’ll get you outta here?”

Remus hesitated, then he shrugged, a smile tugging on his lips. “F-fine. I’ll t-trust you on t-that.” Something flickered in his eyes, something dark. “But I d-don’t really know w-what I’m supposed t-to do, once I’m out. T-There’s a r-reason I’m in here.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sirius said, voice involuntarily tense. “This place won’t exactly help you, will it? We’ll figure something out.”

And he actually meant it. Even if Sirius would get out one day, he’d have to return to his family and sit it out there until he was eighteen and could finally break free. That was, if they would even let him live that long. But he would burn in hell if he couldn’t figure  _ something _ out to make sure this boy would  have something better in his life. He would get him out of there, he would think of something.

Anything.

* * *

They spent the day together, hanging around mostly in the reading room. Peter was still in a therapy session, so Remus and Sirius spent the time going through as many of the books as possible—Remus marking which ones he wanted to read, Sirius drawing penises on their pages with a pen he’d stolen from one of the nurses. Remus wasn’t all too happy about Sirius’s  artistic streak .

“I just don’t know why  you have to show your anger at  t- this institution by vandalizing  harmless, innocent books,” he grumbled, taking out one of the books—A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens—and flipping through it carefully. “Those b-books have never done anything to you, h-have they?”

“Well, no, of course not,” Sirius said, grinning happily at his latest piece of art and putting the book back onto the shelf. “They just have the unfortunate destiny of belonging to the wrong people.”

“That’s still not their f-fault,” Remus muttered, taking one of the still untouched books and dropping onto the couch. “It just feels wrong to p-punish them because you hate their owners.”

“Oh, but it’s not just to anger them,” Sirius said happily, “it’s also for educational purposes, you know? These beautiful drawings will show anyone who picks up a book to read here, that these people don’t have anything to say, and that they shall not give up if they’re like me.”

He looked up just in time to see another smile twitch on Remus’s lips. “ F-fine. Maybe you’ve got a p-point. I w-won’t stop you, but I will also not condone your actions!”

“ Alright.” Sirius whirled around and dropped to the ground in front of him, trying to ignore just how that had to look to other people. He let the pen dance across his knuckles, smiling innocently at Remus. “How about we make a deal? You just… tell me which books you want spared and I won’t harm those. The others…” A deviant grin crossed his face. “Well, like I said. Educational purposes.”

R emus let out a theatrically disappointed sigh, but Sirius could see just how flustered he was. “Y-you s-should k-k-know by n-now what b-books I w-wanna read.”

“ That’s true.” Sirius somehow found the courage to wink at Remus. Actually  _ wink _ . In a flirty mannerism. What was happening?! “ Just leave it to me, then.”

T hey spent some more time in their reading room, Sirius letting his artistic self work on those books for ‘educational purposes’, and Remus just sitting on the couch, knees drawn up, one arm wrapped around his stomach, the other propping up the book resting in his lap.

He looked too cute to be real.

Except he was. He was real, very real, very cute, and, probably, very straight, too. There was no chance whatsoever for Sirius for… anything. Not that it bothered him a lot. He liked simply having that guy as his friend. He would be friends with him until something… anything uncomfortable would happen and Remus decided he didn’t want someone as messed up as Sirius around him anymore.

It was bound to happen at some point.

But until then, he’d enjoy every single moment.

At some point, Sirius gave up his drawing to pick one book and snuggle up on the other end of the couch, occasionally glancing over it and watching Remus. He had the most adorable facial expression when he read something that confused him. He would scrunch up his face a little, his nose would twitch and sometimes he sighed.

Remus seemed often very reserved, obviously trying to hold back his own emotions in case anyone didn’t like what he had to say. Sirius knew this kind of behavior. He would always force himself to shut up and not get agitated at his family’s comments whenever he went down to have breakfast with them.

Or well, that had been before all of this had happened and they’d decided it would be a ‘danger’ to have Sirius downstairs if neighbors and important politicians could come in any minute.

When reading, however, Remus seemed to drop this completely. He didn’t care—or simply didn’t realize—just how much of himself he showed, laid bare when he was reading.

It was fascinating, not to mention quite charming.

At some point they got up and went down the hallway towards the room with the painting materials. Sirius had never been in there before and was surprised to see just how much he actually liked it. The room was flooded with light, rays of sunlight falling through the big windows below the ceiling, bathing the room in a golden-orange light. It had to be afternoon already. Sirius sometimes couldn’t quite fathom, just how fast time would pass in a place like this—run away from him, wasted time, minutes, hours, days, weeks he would never get back.

“P-Peter s-said he’d be out of therapy b-by half past three,” Remus said,  walking into the room and towards one of the empty canvases. “W-we meet up here s-sometimes, l-like when you’re in your sessions.” When he saw Sirius’s worried look, he quickly shook his head. “I n-never told him w-where you are during those hours. D-don’t worry. Though I doubt he’d care; I m-mean he d-did give me those books.”

Sirius smiled softly. “That’s true. Still, I don’t… I don’t like people knowing.”

“That’s o-okay.” Remus shrugged, opening his arms in a wide gesture. “H-how do you like it?”

Sirius took some time to look around. He did like it, actually, quite a bit. There was something about this room that was way more welcoming than any of the others. Perhaps it had to do with the people spending their time in this room—artistic, creative people. Creativity seemed to be the very opposite of depression, Sirius sometimes thought, and yet it always went hand in hand.

Canvases, both already colored and empty ones, stood everywhere in the room,  something frizzly hang from the ceiling (paper garlands), there was…  _ glitter _ everywhere. Tables were filled to the brink with  huge posters with not finished drawings and just more glitter and drying glue.  There were some art projects involving clay, too. The chairs and stools in the room didn’t seem to be used for sitting—they were used as little side tables to hold their pens, crayons and brushes. It was fascinating.

“It’s… actually lovely, I don’t know why I haven’t come in here before,” Sirius said, chuckling lightly. “No wonder you guys spend a lot of time in here.”

“Yes, well, I’m no good at drawing, but Remus has a thing for it,” another voice spoke up and Sirius flinched, whirling around to look at the boy that had just entered the room and was now closing the door behind him. It was Peter, and Sirius could feel himself slowly relax.

R emus smiled softly. “You d-don’t give yourself enough c-credit, Pete,” he said, surrounding the canvas and walking towards them. “You’re a-art is incredible.”

Peter’s lips twitched slightly. “So, what do we wanna do?”

“H-how about s-something for y-you guys t-to get to know each other?” Remus suggested. “I k-know it’s w-weird right n-now, b-but it doesn’t have to be.”

Sirius hesitated. There was still something off about that boy—or maybe it was just his mind, looking for an excuse not to like him other than his jealousy. Perhaps Remus was right. “Alright, fine,” he said, sitting down on the ground right there and then. “What do you have in mind?”

Remus smiled, making his way through all of the objects in the room and disappearing behind a canvas that reached from the ground way up until it almost touched the ceiling. It showed a beautiful painting of a forest and a castle. When he returned, he held a bottle in his hands.

“How ab-bout a round of T-Truth or D-Dare?”

Sirius tried to suppress  the laugh tickling in his throat, then he looked at Peter who didn’t bother hiding his smile. “Wonderful.”

It started with the easiest things. Full names—Sirius of course already knew Remus’s, but he figured out that Peter was actually just called Peter. He didn’t seem to have a middle name, which—considering his own middle name—Sirius envied him for.  Then favorite foods, favorite drinks, favorite subjects… just something to warm them up.

The questions and dares got funnier and easier as time went on. Sirius dared Remus to break into the nurses’ office and steal whatever food he could find. He had no idea how that small kid managed, but he did. He returned with a bag of marshmallows and an entire box of  gummy worms.

When it was Peter’s turn and he asked Sirius, Sirius chose Truth.

“Have you ever had a crush on your best friend’s girlfriend?”

Sirius couldn’t help it—he fell back onto the ground, rolling on the floor and clutching his chest. What a… weird question, especially considering… well, everything. He could feel a thin hand on his back, obviously trying to calm him, but it didn’t exactly help. He could hear Remus chuckle, the laugh vibrating through his entire body.

“D-do you w-wanna tell him?”

“C-can’t,” Sirius wheezed, trying to catch his breath. It had been a while since he’d really, actually laughed. He liked laughing. He liked chuckling, smiling, grinning. He liked the effect his smile had on people—especially Remus who would blush every time.  But laughing this hard, at something he actually considered funny; something he hadn’t said himself… It hadn’t happened in… forever.

His ribs hurt. He was pretty sure some of his muscles spasmed, too, like some left over electronic shocks from his therapy session the day before. Just for a second he thought he might choke, because he couldn’t quite breathe right, but that feeling was gone just seconds later.

When he finally recovered, Remus had tears of laughter in his eyes and Peter seemed completely confused.

“I’m not…” Sirius pressed a hand against his ribcage, forcing himself to take a long, deep breath. It stung, but sort of in a good way. “I don’t… I would never fall for James’s girl. I’m—” He shook his head. “I’m  _ gay _ .”

Peter’s mouth moved into a round ‘o’, realization dawning in his eyes. “Well, that makes more sense,” he then said.

Remus was laughing quietly, shoulders shaking, arms around himself. Sirius wondered if he ever actually laughed out loud.

“Yeah,” he grinned. Peter didn’t seem to care. That was good. He definitely liked him a bit more now. “My turn,” he added and took the bottle to spin it. Peter. “Truth or Dare?”

“Easy. Dare.”

Sirius grinned, gesturing towards the box of gummy worms. “I dare you to eat all of them.”

“That’s even easier—”

“Within four minutes.”

Peter didn’t seem to be bothered by a challenge like this, he simply laughed and took the box to open it. “Who will stop the time?”

Remus pointed at the clock hung up on the wall just over the door. They waited for a bit more, to have a round ammount of seconds to count from, and then Peter started eating as fast as he could. He actually did manage to eat all of them in just 3 minutes and 43 seconds,  although he did have to throw up afterwards. When he returned from the bathroom, a bit shaky, he grinned.

“I told you it’s easy.”

They played a couple more rounds—Peter got his revenge on Sirius by daring him to put some of the glue in his hair and then spread glitter all over it—then it was Sirius’s turn again. The bottle landed on Remus.

“Uhm… Which of your friends are you secretely envious of?”

Remus blushed. “That’s easy. Y-you.”

Sirius thought his heart might stop.  _ “Why?” _

Remus shrugged, smiling impishly. “You’re the only friend I have. Except for Petey, of course,” he quickly added and Peter just waved it off.

“But… why?” Sirius still didn’t get it.

“I don’t know. You’re… perfect.” Remus blushed even more now, tugging at the hem of his sweater. “And beautiful.”

Sirius could hear Peter giggle somewhere, but he didn’t care. Did… Had this amazing human being just called him beautiful? Something about this was wrong. Something  _ had _ to be wrong. Remus tugged at  the neckline  of his jumper , drawing it up to his chin, as if it could make him disappear.

Sirius could feel his heart skip again, could feel  _ something _ inside of him flutter against his throat.  His sight became weird and fuzzy and he could feel himself moving, moving towards Remus without even thinking about it.  He felt his hand, reaching out and gingerly touching his cheek, running a thumb along Remus’s lower lip. He could hear his breath catch as he did so and panicked, almost pulling away before he realized Remus didn’t move.

It felt like Remus was looking at him—right at his eyes. Sirius returned, staring into glowing amber eyes, almost feverish, as he leant forwards. His view flicked down to Remus’s lips where his thumb still laid.

Two sides of him battled in his mind, but whatever was shouting at him to back off and leave Remus alone, telling him he was about to ruin their friendship, that Remus didn’t like touch, that he didn’t like him like that, was lost now, and he moved forward again. He moved his thumb to his friend’s chin as he felt Remus’s breath dancing over his own lips. Sirius wondered if Remus could hear his heart pounding against his ribcage, or feel the slight tremor in the fingertips on his face.

Remus tongue darted out to dampen his lips, and Sirius felt all logic leave him. With all rationality out of the window, he tilted his head down until their lips were barely millimetres apart.

And then a scream tore through the atmosphere, shrill to Sirius’s ears, and he flinched back. He could feel Remus shiver and immediately let go of him, not sure what exactly had just happened. Or… what would have happened if no one had screamed.

He still felt dizzy, but when he looked up, he could see why he’d even heard the scream—Peter had respectfully left the room… but he’d forgotten to close the door behind him, which could have ended badly for both Remus and Sirius, had they… done what they had been about to do.

Sirius was the first to get out of the daze, shaking himself out of it and getting to his feet, reaching out to help Remus up. To his utter delight, Remus actually took his hand. They quickly let go and before Sirius could say or do something he’d regret, he just turned around and left the room, into the hallway to follow the noise that had been growing in intensity, figure out what was going on.

It was quite easy to figure out. There was a little croud already, some nurses and one or two patients, one of which was screaming hysterically. At first Sirius thought that was it—just someone having another episode, but then someone moved and he had clear sight of  the room they’d been crowding.

There was someone laying on the floor. It was a girl, still pretty small, definitely younger than him. She had to be around twelve or thirteen. She seemed almost peaceful like this, slightly curled on her side, one arm wrapped around her stomach.

Except she was pale, her brown hair was dull and mat, and there was blood just below her nose, on her upper lip. And her eyes were open, staring into nothingness, not moving.

She was dead.


	7. Regulus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some light violence, I guess? also, referenced child abuse and implied self-harm/suicide attempt

For a second, Sirius thought his heart might stop—and not in the good way this time. It was like time would freeze, like all he could see was the dead body on the ground, a dead girl, like all he could hear were the hysteric screams of one of the patients, echoing throughout the hallway and in his ears. All he could feel was that weird cold, empty feeling inside of him; the one he only knew from his summer at home, when they had refused to give him food to regular times.

He could feel something else, too, just for a split second: fingertips brushing against his open hand, ever so slightly, until they were drawn back and Remus moved his head a little to see what was wrong.

Whatever happened afterwards—how it started, why it happened in the first place—Sirius really didn’t know. And it happened too fast. It started with a muttering, making it’s way through the screams and the silent, worried chatter of the nurses and one of the security guards standing by the door, making it impossible for anyone other than staff to enter the room.

Sirius heard the mutter, even though it was so silent no one else could possibly hear it. Remus had always been quiet, silent. At least, that was how it started.

“No,” Remus whispered by his side, eyes staring at the body in front of him. “No, no, no, not again. This can’t happen, not again— _please._ ”

Sirius turned to look at him worriedly and realised his friend was bent over, hands on his knees, breaths coming out shallow and shaky. He was pale, so much paler than usual, and his entire body was trembling. He looked just about ready to throw up, or pass out.

“Remus?” Sirius murmured, reaching out to take his hand—except he couldn’t. Not only was it dangerous for him to be seen holding another boy’s hand, it could also end bad for Remus. He did not want Remus to end up in conversion therapy. He was way too small and fragile; he could not let this happen. Instead he settled with laying a hand on Remus’s back. “Remus, calm down.”

Remus let out a strangled cry and flinched violently, moving away so fast Sirius couldn’t even stop him, escaping his touch.

“D-d-don’t,” he gasped, leaning against the wall, clutching his chest desperately, as if trying to claw his skin open to finally find a way to take in that precious air his lungs craved so much. “J-j-just d-don’t, p-p-please.”

Sirius shrank back in fear—what had he done wrong? Remus had not stuttered this bad in more than a week, since they’d gotten to know each other better. And even back then, it had been more understandable than this. Something in the back of his mind reared its ugly little head, telling him that once again, this had to be his fault. It had to be, there was no other explanation.

Because Remus had not acted like this until after Sirius had—almost—just kissed him. Almost. It had to be that, and it was Sirius’s fault now, he had ruined their friendship and he would ruin everything else, too. No wonder his family had hated him so much… He couldn’t do anything but mess things up. More so than usual, in this case.

Except his doubts were brushed aside when Remus looked up, fear and pain in his dazed eyes, like he was somewhere else entirely.

“I-i-it’s n-not y-you,” he forced out between clenched teeth, reaching out with one hand somewhat weakly. “I-I-I j-just—I c-can’t d-do—I… n-no—”

Sirius hurried over immediately, this time refraining from touching him, even if he really just wanted to comfort him. It wasn’t the way to achieve this right now.

“What can I do?” He asked, voice as low and gentle as his anxiety would possibly let him. “What do you need—what’s even happening?”

“I j-just—I d-don’t… I-I-I m-might—”

He didn’t finish his sentence, instead just stared at the open door, at the body in the room behind it, and his eyes went blank. And then something—something—seemed to switch inside of him. He began thrashing and twisting, senseless words leaving him, something about how it was happening again and again, and how it couldn’t be possible, how it shouldn’t be—

Sirius could feel helpless tears well up as he just couldn’t do anything, knowing full well if he touched him, it would only make things worse.

A nurse went past him, right towards Remus, saying something quietly and softly, but Remus didn’t even seem to hear her. When she reached out to touch his wrist, he bucked, letting out a scream and thrashing, accidentally hitting the nurse in front of him, smacking her right into the shoulder.

“Remus,” Sirius hissed, ducking under the arm of the nurse as she tried to hold him back, but he ignored her. “Remus, come on, snap out of it—you do _not_ want to have them—”

But it was too late. Someone had called some more guards, obviously feeling threatened by Remus’s unexplainable outburst. Three more security guards made their way through the little crowd in the hallway, stopping in front of Remus, and when Sirius saw the nurse hurry away, he knew what was gonna happen.

“No.” He stepped forward, trying to get between the guards and is friend, but he was too thin and too weak—the guards easily pushed him aside and someone grabbed Remus by the shoulder. Remus was already screaming and thrashing by then, not having come down from his… episode, or whatever this seemed to be. He lashed out, smacking the one holding his arm right in the face. A second guard took his other arm and another grabbed him by the waist, trying to pin him down, or at least take away his range of movement.

Remus was struggling a lot, way more and way stronger than someone of his age and stature should be able to. He managed to kick another guard and threw his head back, hitting the one holding him by the waist in the face—Sirius was pretty sure he heard an unhealthy squealching sound and supposed it was the nose.

Then the fourth one stepped forward, helping the others and pinning Remus to the ground.

Sirius shook his head, even though he knew exactly that by now it was too late and he couldn’t do anything to help. “No, come on, please. You know this won’t help him— _this doesn’t help anyone!_ ”

But, of course, he was ignored. Some other patients stared at him, but a nurse was talking to him, apparently trying to calm him down. Sirius picked up the usual blabbering of ‘we’re only doing what’s best for him; you’ll see it works wonders; don’t you remember how good this worked for you?’, but he didn’t really listen.

He just couldn’t do anything. At all. He could only stand there and watch as one of the guards waved at a nurse, snapping at her to finally ‘put him under’. He saw them plunge a needle into the crook of Remus’s arm, he saw him calming down, slowly, involuntarily. His eyelids fluttered.

“Come on, love, you need to leave.” Someone tugged at his sleeve, gently, calm—too gentle, too calm. No one should be this calm in a situation like this. “You can’t be here and we need to assess the… problem.”

Problem.

_Problem?!_

There was a dead body—a dead girl—in the room right across from them, and she talked about it like it was some minor inconvenience. Was that really how someone who’d just died was treated in this place? No sympathy, no kindness—just some dead… _thing_ that needed to be deposed of.

And yet, despite there being a dead girl, all Sirius could think of in this very moment was Remus. He knew what he was going through at this very moment—it was what had happened to him, two weeks in. He’d lost control and even though the drugs they had given him made it hard to remember what he did, he was pretty sure he had threatened one of the security guards. He didn’t quite know what exactly he had done or said, but apparently it had been enough for them to lock him in isolation, strip him of his clothes and drug him against his will.

It had been one of the most humiliating experiences in his entire life, and that was saying something.

Knowing that Remus was going through the same procedure in this very moment made his heart beat spike up, and he had to force himself to calm down. He worried, but if he worried too much, someone would connect the dots and that wasn’t helpful for either of them. And besides, he had to keep a level head. He needed to stay cool and think what he was supposed to do next.

He let the nurse take him by his arm—even though he really just wanted to shake her off, feeling like her grip was going through his sweatshirt and burning him—and she walked him back to his room, where she told him to stay unless someone got him. Apparently, all the patients had to stay in their rooms for now.

For the first time in… ever, Sirius kinda wished he had a roommate. He wished he could talk with someone he felt close to. He wished Peter was in the same room. Remus, of course. He wished for James, although of course he was glad that wasn’t a possibility. He had never been happier aboutt he fact that James was outside of this institution, safe and sound.

But he missed him.

He spent a couple more hours pacing in his room, not exactly knowing what he should do. He played with the glass shard he still had in his pillowcase, letting the cool object lay in his hand for a while, adjusting it from time to time, so it would draw patterns of light orbs on the ceiling and the walls whenever it caught sunrays.

When someone knocked on his door, he tried to hide the glass shard so desperately fast, he almost cut himself.

“Come in,” he called, brushing some loose strands of hair out of his face.

The door opened and a nurse peaked in. “Hello dear,” she said, smiling at him softly. “You have a visitor.”

Sirius looked up and at the clock. It was already way past six, almost seven pm. Whoever had chosen to visit him today of all days had picked a bad time. Of course, last time, James hadn’t exactly been on time either, but there had been some issues anyways and it wasn’t something that happened very often with him.

Which meant, either James had run into some trouble—or someone else was paying him a visit.

He quickly got up from bed, looking for his jumper and pulling it over before he followed the nurse down the hallway, through the dining  hall and through another corridor to the visitor’s room.  There was no one else there, just like the last time, but this time he didn’t mistake the one person in the room, sitting on one of the sofas.

How could he have mistaken James for his brother the last time? Perhaps it had been too long since he’d last seen him, but now, like this,  he didn’t see how he could have made this error.  The boy with the black hair, having his back turned to  Sirius, was  way more strict than when he had last seen him. His posture was rigid, seemed almost forced, and it didn’t even look like he was breathing.

S irius surrounded the couch,  coming to a stop in front of his visitor.  He had his  hands folded in his lap, clothes and hair as impeccable as ever,  skin as pale as the moonlight and a look on his face that seemed etched into it, just as rigid and cold, like a mask.

S irius let out a soft sigh, trying to suppress the sadness welling up inside of him. “ Hello, Regulus.”

“Sirius.” His little brother looked up, right into his eyes. Cold eyes. They had such a warm, brown color, and yet they were so much colder than Sirius’s grey ones. “ Long time no see.”

“ And whose fault is that?” Sirius bit his lip and looked to the ground, immediately regretting his harsh words. “ I’m sorry. I’m… glad you came.”

Of course he was glad. He’d yearned to see his brother again. It had been weeks since he’d last seen him, months even. Regulus had only visited him once so far,  one week after he had been committed.  They weren’t allowed to spend much time together though, since  Walburga and Orion had come with him back then. They hadn’t said much either, but their presence alone had prevented the brothers from having a heart to heart.

A nd yet, he couldn’t quite understand why Reg hadn’t just taken some of his pocket money and taken the train to come visit him, at least once during that time.

“Yo u have glitter in your hair,” Regulus remarked as Sirius sat down across from him. “ It looks sticky, too. What on earth have you been up to?”

“ Oh well—”

Where to begin? He’d made friends with the most incredible boy ever, who he was falling in love with and almost kissed, and who was now stuck in one of the most uncomfortable situations possible; he had conversion therapy of the most disgusting kind with a sadistic woman giving him electro shocks, and someone in the same hallway his room was in had just… died? Been murdered? He still didn’t know.

“Kinda just… I can’t really explain.” Sirius sighed again, letting his fingers run through his hair in an involuntary movement, only to realize what Reg had said. When he took his hands away, there were sparkly glittery things everywhere. He looked up just in time to see his brother smirk, just a little bit.

“ I can imagine this would be hard to explain.”

“Believe it or not, it’s actually one of the more simple things,” Sirius scoffed, feeling the tiredness dragging on him. He hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. “Reg… why are you here now? Why didn’t you come visit me before?”

Regulus raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

“What do I—Reg, you’ve basically been MIA. What… what happened to you, I mean… what happened to our promise?” Sirius said, hating himself for the way his voice was shaking. “ What happened to the promise we made that we would be there for one another—even if it got complicated? I mean… What happened to that, did you just… forget it—forget  _ me _ ?”

The idea of that was terrifying and Sirius had to swallow hard to force down the lump in his throat. Crying now was the most useless and stupid thing he could possibly do.

“ Is that honestly the first thing you think of?” Regulus sounded so cold, so far off. Like he wasn’t even in the room. “I’m sorry I let you  _ rot _ in here, brother, but it’s not like I can just leave the house and come back as I please.”

S irius blinked, forcing down his fear, trying to ignore how anxious he felt about this whole situation. “I’m sorry.” He leaned back, looking his brother over completely for the first time in months. “ You look good.”

Regulus scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Is that so,” he muttered. “What an irony, really.”

Sirius frowned, leaning forward a bit and reaching out, but Reg didn’t respond to this, simply stared at him. “Reg, are you alright?”

“Define that,” Regulus said, blinking and cocking his head to the side. “Because, honestly, how am I supposed to be doing? My older brother is in a mental hospital and my parents actually would  _ belong _ here,” he hissed.

Sirius hesitated, wanting nothing more than to ask, but dreading the answer. “ Reg, are they… They’re leaving you alone, right? They’re not… Father isn’t—”

“That’s not really any of your business anymore, is it?” Regulus sighed, letting his slender, pale fingers run through his dark hair. “ Besides, even if Father were hitting me—which is by the way the word you’ve been looking for and have so conveniantely forgotten—it’s not like there’s anything we could do about it now.”

“There’s not—Are you serious?”

“No, I think that’s your specialty,” Regulus said cooly, picking up on the pun but not showing any sort of amusement.  He tugged at his jacket a bit, smoothing the fabric. “Now, can we drop it? And since we’re at it, can you stop looking at me like I’m some sort of lost puppy? I’m perfectly fine, thank you—and to answer your question from before… No, I have not forgotten our promise.”

His voice got a bit quieter at that, and he looked down, avoiding Sirius’s gaze. It was something Regulus had never done like that before; avoiding someone’s look. He had been raised just like Sirius had been… except Sirius had spent the last couple months cooped up in a mental hospital where the last thing they cared about were if he avoided looking up.

Regulus on the other hand was still at Grimmauld Place. He was still there, still with their parents, still with their father’s angry fists and their mother’s vicious tongue. Except this time, he was alone.

And Sirius could do nothing to help, no matter how much he wanted to.

It broke his heart.

“Now, I have been told something bad happened here today?” Reg looked up again, but he still couldn’t meet Sirius’s eyes; instead gazing right past him, out the window.

“Y-yes.” Sirius shook his head to get rid of the dark thoughts fluttering through his mind, and leaned back again. “Something… Apparently, someone… died? Or, I don’t know, maybe she was even murdered, but I haven’t seen anything other than a bloody nose. They didn’t tell us much about it.”

They didn’t tell them much at all.

“Good God, is it always this exciting here?” There was no lightness in his voice, no warmth. Just sarcasm and darkness.

“No, I wouldn’t say we have people dying around here very often,” Sirius scoffed, closing his eyes against the  sadness gnawing itself through his insides at his brother’s coldness. A coldness like this was never just born out of nothing. It was created, forged, in pain, hatred, and loathing. “ Why, is it intriguing to you?”

“I’d just be curious as to how someone can just simply die under the watch of well-trained nurses in one of the best mental hospitals in the country.” Regulus let out a short, dry sort of laugh. “ You wouldn’t think that’s all too common, is it?”

“ I don’t know what’s common in these places, Reg,” Sirius said, maybe a little too harshly. “You’d be surprised at what’s still practiced.”

“ What do you mean?”

Sirius looked away, biting his lip again. It was a habit he’d learned from Remus while watching him during those weeks. He always did it when he was anxious about something and somehow Sirius had picked it up. It was a bad habit and Mother would have him hauled into the basement and locked in there without food for a week if she saw him doing that.

“ Sirius,  _ what do you mean? _ ”

He sounded surprisingly… aggressive. And… hurt. It hurt Sirius too, just to hear his brother like that. To hear him worry, even though he had done nothing wrong.

“Nothing.” Sirius let out a shaky breath. “Nothing, it’s fine.  It’s just… you know why Mother and Father had me committed here.”

“Yes, because you tried to bloody off yourself,” Regulus muttered. “At least that’s what they say.”

Sirius head shot up at that, and for a second his vision swam. “I—what?!” He had… never even heard of that. Why… why would they do that, why would they lie if they wanted to raise their perfect little son with their ideals anyways? Why not just say? “W-what are you even talking about? W-why are you… you’re not… You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?”

“Well, I know what I’ve been told.” Regulus shrugged. At Sirius’s obviously shocked look, he simply rolled his eyes. “Come on, you moron, it’s not like I’d believe anything anyone says. I have been raised to good for that.”

“I… I mean w-what do they say what happened?” Sirius spluttered, still not able to quite believe what his little brother had just told him. “What, that I… that I just accidentally locked myself in the basement with no light and no…  _ nothing _ , and that they somehow didn’t miss me for two weeks? How did they explain this… a-and my injuries?!”

“They said they were away with me during that time,” Regulus calmly explained. “I mean, that’s not entirely untrue, I was away for most of that time. I’d figured they’d let you out after a day. Obviously they didn’t.”

“ _ Obviously, _ ” Sirius snarled.

“ They said that the servants must have thought you were out again, with a friend, and that you must instead have wandering around the house, as you tend to do, and fallen down the staircase into the basement while somehow letting the door fall close behind you. Hence, the injuries and the malnourishment.”

“I… cannot believe that they managed to get out of it so easily!” Sirius ran a hand through his hair. Obviously he knew that his parents hadn’t told anyone what they’d actually done to him. He had heard them discuss something with his doctors to avoid any kind of suspicion, and then, when he had come home, they had him committed—because of nothing but the reason that he was deviant. Gay.

“ I do,” Regulus said, plucking a thread of fabric off his trousers. “ They are politicians after all, aren’t they?”

“I just can’t—”

“So if that isn’t the reason… Why are you in here, anyways? What reason did they use to get rid of you for a while?” Reg seemed… genuinely curious.

“I… ” Sirius hesitated, biting his lip again. He wasn’t quite sure if he should tell him.  If he did, there were two options: that Reg simply thought it was their parents’ doing to have him shipped away some place secure… or that he realized it wasn’t just an elaborate ruse and his big brother actually was gay.  He didn’t know which one he’d consider worse.

Having his baby brother never know him—or having him hate him for something he’ d never chose n .

Sirius didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse when one of the nurses abruptly opened the door, telling them that Regulus had to leave because it was already past visiting hours. Sirius didn’t know how his brother had managed to get them to give him more time, but he supposed he’d taken advantage of his last name.

“ I’ll see you soon?” It seemed more like a hopeful question than anything else, but Sirius silently begged that his brother got it. Regulus hesitated, a bare smile tugging at his thin lips.

“Let’s hope so, brother.”

* * *

Sirius didn’t hear of Remus for the rest of the evening. Someone in the kitchen seemed to have a soft spot for him, because well past nine pm, a guard went past his room, giving him a tray with some leftovers from dinner.  He barely ate, his mind still spinning from… everything that had happened that day.

Remus and his outburst, with him ending up in solitary, and then Reg, telling him what he had just told him.

It was… awful.

And all he could think about was how desperately he wanted to confide in his little brother, how much he wanted him to just look him in the eyes and tell him that it didn’t matter, that he still loved him. He knew it was corny, he knew it wasn’t something he could just expect, but he had never wanted anything else in his life that much.

And being consumed by such a yearning just made him feel guilty because that was the first thing on his mind—not the fact that Remus was in solitary, alone and drugged up, and probably cold and very scared. He wanted to help him, so badly. He wanted to hug him, even though he knew that Remus probably wouldn’t really like that either, and then he couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss…

There were too many thoughts spinning in his head, too many intrusive, dark, desperate thoughts, and it was all too much. He got up, sprinting into the bathroom connected to his own room and throwing up what little was in his stomach.  He felt a little better—not much, but still a little—afterwards, and curled up in bed, hugging himself.

He didn’t know why, but  he felt kinda… sad.  And… empty. He tugged at the blanket, drawing it up and over his shoulders, waiting till the scratchy fabric tickled his neck. He felt like he needed to be tucked in the way he used to be—sometimes, rarely—as a child. He wanted the blanket to be around him so tight he couldn’t move. Maybe it was because he felt cold, inside and out.

Maybe because he felt lonely.

He just stared at the ground in front of the bed, watching as a shadow danced through the beams of moonlight—a moth, most likely, right in front of his window again. He just watched the little signs of hope and life right there, on the ground in front of him, so close he could almost feel it—but no matter how far he reached, he would never be able to touch it.

He didn’t stop the tears this time, as they left their silent, silvery tracks on his cheek, like he was creating his own rays of moonlight. And then he closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable dark dreams to come.


	8. Minerva McGonagall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some slurs and again, homosexuality being referred to as deviant/sick/wrong.  
> Also, some explicit words I guess? Cause Sirius is sassy as heck in this chapter; I don't know what happened, it got out of hand...

Dark dreams and nightmares haunted his sleep that night. Sirius tossed and turned, never finding a comfortable position to fall asleep in again, always waking up again and again, torn out of his bad dreams by screams that weren’t real, and still followed him into the waking life.

He still felt kinda weak and cold when he finally got up in the morning, dressing in the twilight while waiting for the bell to ring.  He did feel  kinda worse when he went to the dining hall and looked up only to find that Remus had still not returned. Of course, he shouldn’t have expected anything else, really. When he’d been locked in solitary, he had been in there for more than two full days—and it had not been fun, so when he’d come back, he spent the rest of the third day alternating from the bed in his room and the loo, trying to throw up.

Hopeless, since he hadn’t been given much food while stuck in that room—not that he wasn’t used to it, but it was still weird. The sickness had come from the drugs they had administered during his time there… to keep him calm, as they would always say.

He’d only started feeling better on the fourth day—not that he had had much of a choice to rest up, because once some nurses had picked him up to force him to have at least a little breakfast, he had also been brought back to his old room w here his therapist had greeted him with yet another two hours of conversion therapy.

A nd yet, seeing that Remus wasn’t there—meaning he was still stuck in that awful place—it twisted something inside of him, and he hung his head.

“Hey there, Sirius!”

He looked up, tray with food in his hands, to see someone waving at him from across the hall. It was Peter. A tired smile tugged on his lips, and he made his way through the labyrinth of tables.

“ Hi, Wormy.”

“Wow,” Peter just said, laughing a little as Sirius sat down next to him. “Is that really what you’re gonna call me now, just cause you have a bad day? You know, some of us haven’t tried to lock you in here and force you into a therapy you most likely don’t want.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, picking at his breakfast. “It’s a bloody nickname, moron. I don’t use it to insult you, I use it as an ice breaker.” He shrugged slightly, grinning a little. “It’s also hilarious.”

“Okay.” Peter sighed. “Can you at least give me a better nickname than some slimey insect?”

“It’s not an insect!” If Remus had been sitting at this table now, he would have been the one to correct him. It felt like a little mean stab. “It’s… well, actually, it’s just a worm, I don’t know what kind of animal they are. But what else should I call you—it’s connected to one of the first experiences I’ve had of you!”

“I… don’t see—”

“You ate an entire box of gummy worms.” Sirius shook his head, still somewhat amused at the fact. If he’d been more up to it, if Remus were sitting here, he’d probably laugh, maybe even feel… happy about this kind of situation. “And then you threw them up again; I don’t see how that justifies any other nickname but Wormy.”

“Well, I think they kinda… looked like rattails,” Peter said somewhat quietly, pouting a little. “And it’s not my fault I threw them up—you made me eat them so quickly, of course my stomach would rebel!”

Sirius chuckled and Peter joined in, then got a little calmer, more sincere.

“Have you heard anything about Remus?” He asked.

Sirius paled a little and shook his head. “No, and we probably won’t for another day or so.”

“How do you know?” Peter cocked his head to the side, looking genuinely interested.

“I…” Sirius hesitated, twitching a little from side to side, feeling uncomfortable. “I just… I know, okay? This place… It’s not like he’s the first one to end up in there.”

“Well, I’m sure that’s true,” Peter murmured, taking the pill out of the little container and swallowing it with a bit of water. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have a room like that, now would they? Question is just how many people have ended up in there.”

“Why is that the question?” Sirius didn’t know if he was more amused by the fact that _that_ would be the first question on someone’s mind, and not… well, anything else. Although, if he was being honest, Sirius couldn’t quite remember what he’d been thinking about when he first learned that this place existed.

Which… might have had something to do with the fact that he had learned about it by being thrown into it.

He shook his head, shuddering slightly. He was not yet ready to revisit this time. Just two days he’d been in there, two days. And yet it felt like it had been forever, like he’d lost _years_ of time being trapped in that room. A windowless room, a room with pillows for walls. Well, not pillows, of course. It was some weird kind of material, made just for its inmates.

Not only did it feel like he had lost years of his life, it also felt like he’d lost a part of himself in there.

Something important, but still something he couldn’t quite remember.

It was the strangest feeling.

“Sirius.” Peter’s voice was surprisingly soft and gentle. “Sirius, are you alright?”

Sirius shook his head again, trying to clear his thoughts. He needed an open mind for this, he needed calmness. There was no use for unnecessary, unwelcomed memories. He’d revisit them another time, maybe, when they were needed for something—or in his dreams.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.” He picked at his food listlessly, already having taken the medication he was given. It made him somewhat tired, but that wasn’t a new feeling. “What are you up to today?”

“Oh well, kinda nothing.” Peter shrugged, smiling a bit. “I don’t have any therapy sessions as for now… I don’t think I even have the one usually scheduled for Thursday afternoons—I think hours are being cut due to the… incidence.”

He meant the dead girl, of course. Sirius had found out her name by now. Mary McDonald.

“Is that so?” Sirius grinned a little, relieved at the idea of having a break from the ugly, devilish toad messing with his wiring. “Well, that might prove to be an interesting day, then.”

“Indeed; I mean… I heard police is coming in today.” _What?_ Peter stabbed his oatmeal with the plastic spoon unceremoniously, shoving his tray and with it his food away. “Ugh, eating now feels wrong.” He put his chin into his hands, staring around the room and then at Sirius. “So you don’t know when Remus is coming back… do you know if we can visit him?”

Sirius snorted. “It’s called solitary for a reason, Peter.”

P eter shrugged. “Worth a shot,” he sighed. “Fine then. What about…  Uh!” He perked up, looking a bit happier already. “What if we throw him a little welcome back party when he gets out? He might like that, we could… we could meet up in the art room, and… I don’t know, I might try stealing some more gummy worms—”

S irius smirked. Peter’s enthusiasm was great, he felt a little better, knowing that someone else cared about Remus that much. Well, maybe Sirius cared a little too much, but at least he wasn’t the only one, and building a friendship with other patients wasn’t all too strange, so there was less risk of being exposed.

Of course, there was nothing to be exposed.

It was just his head, it was just him reading into things, as always. Remus hadn’t almost just kissed him—he just hadn’t understood what Sirius had been doing. It was unnecessary to ask him if he felt the same, or if he even wanted to do… whatever. There wasn’t anything to be done in this place without getting Remus in danger, and there wasn’t anything to be done because Remus didn’t feel these things for him.

Just like his fingertips brushing against Sirius’s hand had been a coincidence, or maybe a sign of support, of comfort. Nothing else, nothing more to it.

Right?

Because there was this tiny little timid voice inside of him that desperately clung to that moment they shared in the art room, the moment right after Peter had left and just before someone had interrupted them. Because, honestly—what would have happened if no one had screamed right there and then?

Would maybe something have… Maybe something magical would have happened? And maybe Sirius could have found something beautiful amongst the mess that he could call his life.

“ _Sirius.”_

“Huh?” He looked up, realizing he had completely blanked. Peter made a face at him and waved in a weird manner, obviously trying to get his attention. “Sorry, what?”

Peter sighed heavily, but he also grinned a bit, so Sirius was certain that he wasn’t taking it to heart. “About the welcome back party. Your thoughts?”

“Right, yeah.” Sirius hesitated, but shook his head. “I don’t think we can do that.”

“ What?” Peter looked taken aback, hurt, sad. “But… why? Do you have something to do, or…?”

“Noo, no, it’s not that.” Sirius quickly shook his head again. “No, it’s just… They’ll be drugging Remus up. A lot. And I don’t exactly know what they’re giving him, of course, it might be something different from…” He bit his lip, stumbling over his own words, almost having made the mistake of giving away too much information. “ It might be something different from what they’re giving him already, or it might be mixed up with those. Either way, it will be a lot and he won’t be feeling well. I don’t think he’ll be up to it the day he’s released.”

Peter squinted his eyes at him, obviously trying to figure out what Sirius had almost just said.

“ I’m sure he’d love to do it the next day though,” Sirius added, trying to avoid blushing. He always blushed when he was anxious about someone finding something out about him. He hated it, it was such a tell for everyone. Well, everyone who knew him—or cared enough about such a thing. “So, it’s a great idea.”

“How do you know how he will feel?”

“Hm?” Sirius made an innocent face, hoping it was enough to throw him off the scent. “What do you mean?”

“How do you know what Remus will feel like when he is released?” Peter repeated, this time more intense and curious. “You can’t know what’s going on in there, right? You said it yourself, you can’t visit him. No one can.  ‘It’s called solitary for a reason’. You’re not lying to me, are you? ”

“ What—”

Peter continued talking about something, but Sirius didn’t quite hear it anymore. Maybe he’d purposely stopped listening, but as for the moment he didn’t care to feel bad about it.  There was a  woman coming his way and she did not look happy. At all.

“ Mr Black, you’re gonna have to come with me,” she said as she stopped right in front of their table, hands folded behind her back.  Sirius wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her before. “I’m sorry to interrupt your…” She trailed off as she saw his untouched food. “—breakfast.”

“ It’s fine.” Sirius didn’t bother to clean up his stuff as he got up and turned to follow her, Peter’s worried looks in his back like little hooks in his clothes. “ I don’t think I’ve ever seen you,” Sirius said, as he followed her through the hallways, “and I’m pretty sure I’ve met all the nurses by now.”

“I am not a nurse.” The woman said, her lips thin. She was surprisingly rigid and seemed like she had quite a deal of strength in her, and there was anger… but not directed towards him. “I am a trainee. I am soon to be a doctor.”

Sirius raised his brows involuntarily. Female doctors were of course not uncommon, but it wasn’t something to be heard of every day either.

“ That so,” he muttered.

“Yes.” The woman stopped in her tracks abruptly, turning around to face him. “Mr Black, please know that I am… not happy as to how your  _ treatment _ —” At this her nostrils flared. “—is being  handled . I am of the firm belief that your condition is not something that can be treated or cured… nor should it be,” she added a bit more gentle. “And I am sorry that this is what’s happening, and I am sorry that there is nothing I can do about it… for now. But please know that my office is always open for you. You can come to me if something is wrong—if there’s something… foul going on here.”

Sirius didn’t know what he should feel. Relief that someone seemed to… care about him and people like him?  Or  worry, because he didn’t even know how to explain to her just how many things were going wrong.  Besides, it wasn’t illegal—that was the problem. If it were, he could easily—or well, maybe not that easily, considering just how angry he’d be—tell James what was going on and he’d do his best to get him out and get this place swarming with authority.

Except, it wasn’t possible, and it could never be done. Not like that, at least, especially with the fact that his parents had signed some sort of waver, making sure they were allowed to do whatever they did to ‘cure’ him.

“ Mr Black?” Her voice was much gentler now, and she reached out, almost as if she were offering him comfort, but there must have been something in the look on his face, because her hand was shaking a bit, and then she decided otherwise. She sighed. “As I said, my office is open for you, should you decide you wanna… share what’s going on. Or even if you just need someone to listen who doesn’t share Dolores’s crazed opinions,” she added, a sudden disgust in her voice that somehow amused him.

“Thank you, Miss—” He trailed off, raising his brows as he realised that he didn’t know the nurse’s or doctor’s or… whatever she was… name.

“ McGonagall,” the woman said, smiling a bit. She seemed like a very stern woman, like someone who didn’t smile all too often—but maybe she should, because it lit her face. It changed her; it was like the clouds in the sky were moving to make place for the sun. “But patients here usually just call me Minerva, though that’s not what it says on my office door.”

“ Thank you,” Sirius repeated, then turned around, hesitating. “I… know the way, you know? You don’t have to accompany me; I don’t know why they keep doing this,  to be honest .”

McGonagall stared at him blankly, an expression on her face he couldn’t quite understand. Maybe… surprise or… shock. “Mr Black, I don’t exactly know all the things your treatment involves, but I assume it’s standard procedure in case you wanna refuse to go.”

“Oh.” Huh. That was… weird, but he supposed it made sense.

“Has that… never occurred to you?” McGonagall inquired, cocking her head to the side a little. “ Refusing to go, trying to avoid it?  Not even just a little bit?  Considering everything—I wouldn’t really blame you.”

S he said that like it was the strangest thing in the world, and maybe… maybe, when he thought about it like that, she did have a point. He didn’t have the urge to run away—or well, he did, when he was already inside and he didn’t have much of a choice anymore anyways. But what would happen if he decided to… throw a tamtrum? Just so he could avoid going to therapy?

He supposed it would just end up same as with any other patient who refused what was done for their own good and was considered a threat… Solitary. _Where Remus was stuck, right in this very moment._ But why had he never even thought of it before? Why had he never… tried, why did he always follow?

Was there something wrong with him?

McGonagall shook her head sharply, as if to chase away some dark thoughts, but the worried look on her face didn’t disappear. If anything, it had grown darker.

“I’m very sorry, Mr Black, and I shouldn’t keep you.” She made a gesture towards the other rooms. “I’ll accompany you to the room and then I’ll leave you be—though you’ll probably be seeing more of me during this week.” She sighed. “This poor girl’s death really has  put a hold on everything… There’ll be a lot of things to do… ”

T hey didn’t talk much on the rest of the way.  Sirius was way too caught up in his own mind, following fluttering thoughts that escaped him as soon as he tried to catch them.  He didn’t even know how to feel about this new development, because… it was entirely different from what he’d experienced so far.  Someone was being… nice to him, and not just to him—basically, if he understood correctly, to everyone who was just like him. Who had the same… disposition. The same thing that everyone else in this place seemed to call deviant and bad.

It was somewhat thrilling, albeit new and therefore a bit worrying. He didn’t worry about himself, per say, he was just concerned as to what would happen if he actually did decide to confide in her one day. He didn’t dislike her, for sure, but he didn’t exactly trust her, either.

And what if she did prove not to be trustworthy and he said something… bad? Something ‘incriminating’, something that would put others at risk?

Like Remus?

“There we go.” McGonagall stopped and Sirius looked up just in time not to run into her. “I hope you… I hope you’ll have an… _educating…_ therapy session. Good luck.”

He could see just how much those words repulsed her,  and it made him feel just a tiny bit better.

“See you soon, I guess.” Sirius grinned, saluting and turning around, quickly opening and then closing the door behind him again.  He didn’t know much about this new… doctor in training, but if she actually did feel bad about what was going on in Sirius’s therapy, he might as well have the decency to try and hide as much as possible from her.

* * *

T he room was still the same. It was still… disgustingly pink and Sirius was very sure that in his absence, the ugly toad had actually hung up more of these gross pictures, drawings, paintings and old black-and-white photos of cats.

They were everywhere.

Except this time, something about the room seemed different. There was something new in there, although he couldn’t quite say what it was.

“ Mr Black.” That… awful voice, so high and so sweet. With that chuckle. Always the chuckle. “How wonderful to see you again! It’s been a while.”

It had been two days.  Technically, only one and a half. Sirius didn’t see how that was a ‘while’, as she called it, because he sure could have done with some more free time.

“ Hm,” Sirius made, in an overly sarcastic voice, and rolled his eyes. “Indeed, I have missed you so much. I can’t imagine what my life would be like now, without you telling me how wrong and disgusting I am, and how we should best all be murdered in our sleep.”

“Oh, nonsense.” She chuckled again, shaking her head and smiling. “No, I wouldn’t say you should be killed in your sleep! There’s other ways to make it cleaner, less suspicious and faster. Like a machinery, our world is quite developed by now. First of all, this is a facility for research and experimentation in cases like yours; if there’s a cure, there’s no need to go to the more… drastic measures.”

S irius rolled his eyes again, trying not to throw up at the kind of words she’d been saying.  What she said sounded more than just bad, it was dangerous. Not to mention disgusting, wrong, and… oddly specific.  A machinery for death—hadn’t that just happened a short while ago?

“ Drastic measures indeed,” Sirius said, grinning up at her after he’d taken his usual seat. “And what would you call electro shocks to get me to feel repulsion by the very thought of being with another man?”

Umbridge blushed… very strongly, and for a short moment there, Sirius felt something like triumph.  _ Choke on that, you ugly toad. _ “It’s… it—it’s for re-education!” She spluttered, her hands tightening around the object she’d been holding. “It… It’s for the very purpose of erasing such—such—such pictures and… and thoughts and deviant behavior and…”

She looked just about ready to have a stroke  and drop dead, which, at this point, Sirius really wouldn’t mind .

“ Fine,” he said, lazily crossing his legs and smiling in the most innocent way he could. “Fine, of course the thought of having intercourse with someone of the same sex should be erased. Just imagine what would happen to all the young children with such leanings, dreaming of sweaty, horizontal—or well, not necessarily that, I don’t discriminate—sex with someone of the same gender, oh dear. What would happen without someone like you, who will re-educate them in the most harmless and helpful of ways?”

Umbridge blabbered on, ranting mindlessly of the deviantness of children, how ungrateful they were to her fixing the problem. Sirius honestly didn’t know what exactly she was complaining about. Knowing his parents, they were probably paying her a couple grand a month, and that just to make sure she wouldn’t tell anyone just who exactly she was trying to fix.

When the toad had calmed down, about twenty minutes of their time had already passed and she was still somewhat reddish and she was breathing hard.

“ Now, I do not know why I have taken on this job, to be honest,” she squeaked, obviously unable to properly breathe.

“The money,” Sirius muttered, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

“—but… you know, I actually hate children.” She chuckled again, weirdly this time, and a shudder went down Sirius’s spine. “I hate them…  _ so much _ . They’re useless, they’re loud, they’re sloppy, they’re ungratefull and they won’t shut up. Not to mention your generation’s filthy thoughts—it’s like a virus spreading, filling everyone’s minds. Something… needs to be done about that, and I am here, trying to accomplish that!”

She leaned back, still breathing heavily, but she seemed a little happier now. Sirius couldn’t shake the cold, clammy feeling clinging to his skin,  like something bad was about to happen .

“ Now, we have already wasted too much time,” she said, her breath ghosting through the room.  Disgusting, on so many levels. “I… actually wanted us to spend some more time working on the electro shock therapy, however, I have something… new here.” She smiled sweetly. “ Shall we get started?”

Sirius sat there again, waiting as always, while she showed him the pictures, one by one. He was by now familiar with them and was actually surprised she didn’t get any new photos, just to change things up a bit. They always had two hours session, in which she’d take her sweet time going through all of those photos with him getting the little electric shocks, and then talking to him about what he felt.

The worst thing was, slowly, just slowly, it was like he was beginning to feel something else entirely when he looked at those photos.

Not pride or confidence, but… doubt.

Was that even him?  What if the only reason he liked boys was—just subconsciously—because he wanted to spite his parents?  What if all this… his confidence in his sexual orientation, his pride about it mostly coming from James anyways, his stubbornness at seeing girls as hot or even pretty… What if all of this wasn’t him?

What if he wasn’t really the person he had believed to be?

Or what if it was, but all of Umbridge’s attempts were working? Then he could still not be who he had been, because if this was working, then that meant she was fixing him—and if he was who he had been, he couldn’t be fixed.

So he wasn’t really…  _ anything. _

It was the ugliest feeling in the world.


	9. Can you hug me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this got heavy and dark (it's like... 3k of angst). Be careful if you read this, just... I don't know. I had a hard time writing it. Also, mentioning of throwing up, of course homophobia again and slurs.
> 
> have fun?
> 
> I'd also like to apologize for not having updated in such a long time, I've not had access to WLAN. I should now update to the old schedule, once or maybe twice a week, mostly Tuesdays.

They spent about half an hour going through the pictures again, the evil toad taking agonizingly much time. She seemed overly excited for something, though Sirius couldn’t quite figure out what it was about, until after twenty or so minutes, she sighed, leaning back and folding her hands on her knees. Sirius let out a shaky breath, trying to control his body’s reaction to the pain still echoing in his limbs, muscles and bones. He simply grit his teeth and forced back the groan reverberating in his throat.

“So,” Umbridge said, a sweet, disgusting smile on her lips. “I told you I wanted to try something new, I’m gonna figure something out to fix you.” She got up, going past Sirius’s chair and towards her desk. Sirius could hear her rummaging in some drawers.

Technically, he wanted nothing more than to watch her doing whatever the heck she was working on, not wanting to be taken by surprise. He never wanted to be taken by surprise, ever again. But then again, he was too tired, too much in pain, and all his brain was doing was going through all the different memories connected with Remus.

Remus, who was now in solitary. Still in solitary, probably feeling cold, lonely, afraid and sick to the stomach from all the drugs administered to patients deemed dangerous to themselves or others.  Remus who had made him feel… different. Remus who he had almost  _ kissed _ . Wait, no, no, that was a dangerous thing—too dangerous to even think about, let alone speak out loud.

A nd if he thought about it, if he didn’t pay attention, maybe it’d slip past his lips.

Back then, while living at Grimmauld Place, he’d never even have had that fear. He’d never so much as imagined that he’d be able to accidentally say something, but having been in this place for so long, he’d kinda stopped paying attention to his own caution.

Obviously, there was still a lot of things he wouldn’t even consider doing.  But he’d been sleeping alone in one room for so long, he had, for the first time since he could even remember,  stopped sleeping so lightly.

Actually, it had probably started with the drugs they’d given him. They made him dizzy sometimes, making it hard for him to keep in control when he was tired. Now he was always on guard, anxious to say something that could give him—or in this case Remus—away. He had to be careful; not only about what he was saying, but also about what words he muttered when he thought no one was listening.

“ Alright, there we are.” He flinched slightly, when Umbridge spoke up again, ripped from his dark thoughts.  She came around his chair, placing something next to him. Bewildered, Sirius stared at it. It looked like some sort of clothes rack, except he recognized it from his time in the hospital.  How the fuck had she even come to get this?

“ What the…” He clamped his mouth shut, not even daring to ask.

U mbridge smiled again, looking way too happy. “ You don’t have to worry about that now, never mind. Don’t wreck your brain trying to figure out if this is legal or not—I’ve had your parents sign a form, giving permission for this.” She hooked a little bag with a liquid fluid to the rack,  connecting it with a line and a needle.

Sirius started fidgeting uncomfortably, sweat trickling down his brow. He didn’t like needles, at all. He knew it was ridiculous, it was just a tiny object penetrating his skin for a tiny period of time, but the thought alone made his heart go way too fast to be normal. He was used to being beaten or kicked, he was used to awful words shattering his hopes and his heart, he was used to being locked up in the dark and being starved.

But needles made hi m dizzy and uncomfortable, and the view around the edges got swimmy and unclear.

He leaned back in his chair, forcing himself to slow his breathing, unable to  tear his gaze away from the the tiny, shiny needle  getting closer and closer to the crook of his left arm.  He couldn’t help wincing when the cold metal pierced his skin and slid into his arm.  Umbridge sighed happily and moved to set up the drip. Sirius could’ve sworn he felt the  liquid enter his blood stream, cold and searing.

H e blinked rapidly, trying to force back the bile, feeling more than anxious about that damned needle in his arm. Why.  _ Why _ was that happening to him? Did his parents sign for this to simply set up this sort of torture—to make sure Sirius would have to endure his own personal hell?

“ Aalright,” Umbridge said again, even happier now, smiling so widely he  thought her face had to crack at some point. “Now, let’s try this. I bet this will do wonders for your sickness.”

S ickness.

Again, she had called it a sickness.

Maybe he should tell her he was having doubts, just to make her slow down—because a needle in his arm made him way too uncomfortable and so anxious he thought he was about to have a panic attack.  But then again, if he did tell her what was going on, that he was having some doubts about his sexuality… that it sometimes, rarely, but still, felt like he was  only  _ saying _ he was gay, or that he had simply convinced himself of it, to piss off his parents as much as possible.

W hat if he wasn’t really gay? What if it had been some sort of act all along?

“ Now, this will be just like what we’ve done so far, so it won’t be much of a challenge to adapt for now,”  the toad said, sitting back down and sorting through the pictures on her lap. “ I was thinking of changing this part later on, maybe have you talk through the feelings and… urges you experience.”

Urges.  _ Urges? _

Did she mean him feeling drawn to kissing and loving another boy so wholeheartedly he thought it was about to consume him?

He hesitated, taken aback. This was the first time since the session started that he had had one of those instinctive thoughts, and while he immediately started doubting that one, too, it felt sort of good.  The doubt began gnawing its way back through his brain, picking at the thought like hungry birds were picking at crumbs, but the thought itself had come instinctively, just like that.

A single, simple reaction.

Maybe he wasn’t all that lost after all. Maybe all that was happening was Umbitch’s words getting to him, ruining him, taking his brain apart and setting it back together like some kind of messed up puzzle.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to puff out his chest somewhat and sit more rigid, proudly—much like he’d seen Regulus do it the other day, which of course wasn’t exactly what he wanted to be thinking about right now either.

Although…

If he wasn’t thinking about kissing boys when the ugly toad was doing her work… maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe it just wouldn’t get to him and he could keep defying her. Except, what would happen if she was doing what she was doing while he was thinking about his baby brother?

Now that was something he didn’t wanna try. So for now, while he was working on something else, on a better excuse, figuring out a way to shield his mind from her evil words, he’d just have to endure it and hope that he was strong enough to withstand her.

He wasn’t.

For a short while there he really did think he was. In the beginning, he felt strong, defiant, rebellious. Like he sometimes felt in his best moments when he was at Grimmauld Place. When he especially annoyed and pissed off his parents. Just for a short time, that was what it felt like—what he felt like—and he actually thought he might get through it without coming out doubting himself again.

Then, after a quarter of an hour or so, Umbridge shuffled through the pictures again, saying something about how these young boys weren’t much other than a product of people like him—people like Sirius in this case—wanting to project their sexual fantasies on something other than their inner eyes.

“You see, this picture wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a sickness just like yours,” Umbridge said patiently, smiling sweetly and holding up the photograph of a young boy, not much older than thirteen, wearing only a thin dress that was hanging loosely from the way too thin shoulders, bones protuding sharply against the dirty, pale skin.

If that kid had turned around, Sirius bet he would have been able to count all the vertebra down his spine. He could see the pointy shoulders, his high cheekbones, the sunken, waxen skin of his face, dull eyes deep in the eye sockets.

“That kid wouldn’t be in this picture if society would care about homeless people, especially the young ones. It’s not my fault that there are people out there taking advantage of him. I mean…,” he quickly added, flexing his fingers that felt strangely cold and clammy, “it’s not my fault either. Just because there’s some sick people out there, doesn’t mean everyone is like that.”

“So you think it’s a coincidence that this little boy ended up in a picture like that?” Umbridge said, looking at him with an intensity in her eyes that made Sirius shiver.

“No, of course not. Like I said, this kid is obviously in a bad situation and is being taken advantage of.” Sirius looked away, feeling nauseated at the sight of an innocent kid like that.

“So… what, is it his own fault then?” Umbridge cocked her head, blinking calmly. “Is that what you’re saying? He should have just not ended up in this situation where he had to sell his body for a disgusting and disgraceful picture like that to survive?”

“ _What?!”_ Sirius shook his head violently only to stop when his sight swam. This felt wrong. That wasn’t what he had said. He hadn’t… Certainly, what he’d said couldn’t ever be mistaken like that, could it? How could he ever… how would he blame someone for being in a situation where they were weakened and hungry and alone, in need and desperate to do anything just to get a bite to eat? Never would he blame someone for being forced into situations they didn’t wanna be in. “No, no, that’s not—”

“If that’s what your idea of this is, then you’re even more deeply disturbed than I first thought.” Umbridge sighed, leaning back a bit and watching him cautiously, as if expecting him to burst into a million pieces if she just angered him enough. “This poor little kid had to sell his body, his dignity, his grace—his soul, just like that, because he was in a vulnerable position and people took advantage of him. Your people.”

If there even were such a thing as “his” people. If only there was some sort of community where Sirius could talk to someone who might understand, who could help him sort through his confusing and anxiety inducing thoughts and make him figure out what was right and what was wrong.

B ut there wasn’t. Not that Sirius had ever heard of, at least.

And sometimes he felt all alone.

“ I’ve never said there is…” He trailed off, trying to get his thoughts back together, build words to make himself clear.  But it was like there was a cloud of cotton candy wrapped around them, around his entire brain and his tongue, too, and no matter how much he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t get to the point. It was like he was losing everything he’d had before.

His way of fighting back was talking, snappy comments.

Well, it sure didn’t work out like this.  He had to change tactics but he didn’t know how, considering the fact that he wasn’t just unable to articulate and talk properly, he also couldn’t think.

At all.

What was going on? This felt entirely and utterly wrong. It felt like he wasn’t even himself anymore, like he was sort of… floating outside of his body, sitting back and watching himself struggle. It was strange and made him panic.

Umbridge talked again. Her words were blurry, distant, like thick smoke in a room that didn’t have a ventilator or an open window, just drifting towards him in the strangest of ways.

“So, if this isn’t what you’re thinking, then pray tell, explain. Explain to me why there are photographies and pictures like these flooding the market ever since your… kind”—She sounded completely disgusted—“has been openly walking the streets.”

“It’s not like we’re proudly waving flags and tattoo ing the words ‘I am gay’ on our foreheads,” Sirius forced out between gritted teeth. “We’re not openly walking the streets, at least not here.  I… have never heard of such a thing, I’m… literally just trying to live my life, which is something some people desperately try to ruin for me,” he added in a weak attempt of sarcasm, but it just stung, knowing full well it didn’t do shit.

“ But even so, your sole existence has made it possible for a market like this… for young boys to sell their bodies and throw away their dignity just to get some money.” She might have tried to sound like she felt for these kids, but there was not a single bit of sympathy or frustration in her voice. Only coldness.

“ I’m not… this isn’t… No.”

But it was senseless. He couldn’t form any words in his brain anymore, it was like he was completely paralyzed.  Her words were nauseating, and he felt like he was gonna be sick. Then it actually hit him like a slap across the face—he  _ did _ feel sick. Not just mentally, not just like her words were making him wanna barf, he actually felt sick.

The realisation was too much for him and it was like he was slammed back into his body, like someone had grabbed his… soul, or whatever the fuck that was, and pushed it back into the body in front of him. His body.

He groaned, doubling over and clutching his stomach.

When he managed to look up, he saw Umbridge smiling contently,  and knew something was wrong. Of course, something had to be wrong. One didn’t just feel sick like that all out of the sudden, unless they had eaten something wrong. But Sirius hadn’t even had breakfast yet, and whatever little nourishment he’d held in his stomach the other day had been violently rejected by his stomach last night.

H e blinked, trying to work through the fogginess in his mind and sorting through it, trying to figure out what this was… and why this ugly toad smiled so smugly.

_ The drip. _

She’d set up the drip for him when they had started their lesson—she had even said that she was gonna do something new, a new form of therapy. Of course, he should have known that this fluid would do something unpleasant for him. He hadn’t thought much of it, he had been too focused on the cold needle sliding into his arm, but he should have paid more attention to whatever it was she was giving him.

Was this even legal?

He couldn’t think it was, but then again, he had heard of gay people being treated with a new form of therapy, something the therapists and doctors called aversion treatment. His parents had given him articles about it sometimes, just to show him how bad these people were—that they deserved nothing but a living hell. Sirius hadn’t believed it back then. But now… There seemed to be something true about it.

Because this sure felt like hell, in all the painfulness of it.  It wasn’t even just the slow, dull, numbing pain in his limbs, the creeping awareness of having no feeling in his clammy, cold fingers,  not just the cold sickness clawing its way through his stomach… most of all it was the deep hurt within the very core of his being.

“ You doing alright, dear?” She asked in such a sweet high voice, Sirius thought that was gonna do the trick and he’d actually try emptying his stomach right in front of her.

B ut he had to try and resist that urge. He also had to force against the pull suddenly starting up in the back of his head, that indescribably pull to faint, pass out, fall asleep and—at its best—to never wake back up.  He had to resist, because if he didn’t… if he gave in, gave up, then he’d lose everything he was so desperately holding onto… and if he lost what was keeping him sane in this place, then he’d lose himself.

And he didn’t want to know what would happen if his brain was left to nothing but his worst memories.  
Probably nothing good.

So he swallowed back the bile, clenching his hands into fists shakily and slowly, looking back up and forcing himself into a normal sitting position, even leaning back as if lazy, ignoring the stabbing pain in his stomach as he did so. Then he smiled at the ugly toad, imagining what it would look like if he bashed her face in.

_ Not much prettier. _

“Never better,” he said, keeping his voice low so he could control it better. He knew if he spoke up she would probably able to hear the pain and devestation echoing in his entire body, and he’d never let her have that kind of satisfaction.

Or well, not yet at least. Not as long as he had a single bit of control.

He could see Umbridge wrinkling her brow, her confused gaze flicking to the drip she had administered and then to his arm, as if checking that the needle was still in there.  
Of course, it was. He could have told her so. He was very aware of that tiny, cold object just beneath his skin, and the very thought of it made him wanna scream.

“ Well then,” she said, still a bit confused, but apparently satisfied with that fact. “Shall we continue with the pictures? Our session is not yet over.”

S irius forced a smile to tug on his lips, as sarcastically as he could manage without throwing up from the very movement itself. “Of course.”

* * *

The session had felt a lot longer than usual, even though technically Sirius knew it had only been an hour and a half, just as it always was. Maybe because usually, the factor she’d used to make him feel revolted by his own thoughts was pain—and he was used to pain. Pain was quick, sharp, held his thoughts over water to make sure he wouldn’t drown in the darkness and loneliness.

But this… this new thing, feeling sick to the stomach, feeling cold and clammy and having difficulty articulating things and following his own thoughts, as if she had purposely made him slow down to make sure his defense mechanism was down as she talked her evilness into him… It felt like he was slowly getting sick and weak and… old, like he had no control of the situation, his body, his mind—anything.

Which, of course, was the reason for the fluid she’d been giving him all that time. He felt weird. Like he was actually getting sick, not just because he’d been given drugs without his consent, which should be a crime in itself.  He sighed, miserably hugging himself as he trudged back to his room, not really feeling up for company.  He didn’t want to explain to Peter why he looked the way he looked—why it apparently seemed like he couldn’t even stand on his own two feet.

He took his time, not forcing himself to hurry up like he usually did, feet dragging as he made his way through the hallways, feeling absolutely humiliated. He shouldn’t be this weak.

But then again, he’d managed to withstand her manipulation, he had thought back. Dark thoughts and doubts were still swirling around in his mind, but at least there he could be sure that it wasn’t anything that ugly toad had said or done.

… Right?

No one he knew came the same way or passed by, so he managed to get to his room more or less undetected, opening and closing it within an instant, wanting nothing more than to just curl up in bed and not do anything anymore for at least a week.  Except when he turned around, there was someone standing in the middle of his room.

“Sirius?”

He jumped at the quiet, weak voice and the deathly pale skin, the thin body being nothing new and yet extremely concerning in this case. He put a hand to his chest and put pressure on it as much as he could with his shaky fist, forcing his heartbeat to slow down that was racing a lot faster than usual for more than just one reason.

“ Remus,” he whispered, crossing the room within a split second to stand next to his boy… eer, friend. He stopped before he could get too close, hands hovering in the air around him, not sure if he was allowed to even touch him. He wanted to. He wanted to hold him, wanted to hug him, wanted to make sure that he knew that he was gonna be okay. “Remus, are you… what happened? When did you get out?”

Remus inched a little closer, as if encouraging Sirius to lay a hand on his shoulder or something. “L-l-literally j-just an hour ago, b-but they wanted t-t-to d-do s-some sort of check up, f-first, so I d-d-didn’t come to b-breakfast.”

Sirius frowned at the stutter that seemed worse than usual, but didn’t address it. “It’s fine, you probably wouldn’t have been able to stomach anything anyways.” He stared at Remus, marvelling at the fact that he’d been released so soon. “All the drugs…”

“Y-yeah, I w-wasn’t f-feeling all too well.” Remus scrunched up his face in the most adorable of ways and then looked up to meet Sirius’s gaze who quickly turned away. “Y-you d-don’t look so good either. Y-you actually look worse than usual after y-your meetings. A-are you all-allright?”

“Uhm.” Sirius hesitated. “Yeah. Probably just coming down with something. It’s flu season.  I didn’t think you’d come—here of all places after getting out. I figured you’d wanna get some rest. Are you alright? Are you… you’re okay, right? You feeling a bit better?”

Remus’s eyes seemed oddly bright at that and he tugged at his sleeve, shaking his head slightly. “N-no.” When Sirius didn’t pry, he looked a bit surprised, but he was obviously relieved. “W-would you m-mind…” He mumbled something incoherent and Sirius frowned.

“Come again?”

It took several tries for him to finally get it out, but he seemed mortified and, quite honestly, terrified when the words finally slipped past his lips.

“W… would you mind h-h-hug—hugging me?” He whispered, entire body shaking. “I—I k-know it’s a s-strange r-request, b-b-but I just… f-figur… I just f-figured someone could—I wanted to—”

Sirius shook his head, taking a single step to close the last bit of distance between them and wrapped his arms around the trembling boy who seemed so much smaller in that  grey  hospital hoodie.  It felt strange, in a certain way. It was clear that Remus was not used to being touched, let alone  _ hugged _ , and his entire body shuddered against him  though he didn’t pull back .  Sirius of course wasn’t used to touch either, unless it was because his parents were angry with him.

It felt… weird, although not bad to build contact like that with someone to… comfort them. And in a strange way, it kinda felt good for him, too. It was like that was tiny thing to make his day better after it had started in such an awful way.

He tightened his hug just a little bit and felt—more than he heard—a small sob escape from the other boy.

He didn’t know how or when it happened in this weird whirlwind of emotions, but somehow they ended up on the small bed in his room, Remus curled up with his back against Sirius’s chest as he held him tight, not letting go even as the small, stifled, choked back sobs turned into a crying fit. He didn’t know what to do, just held him, moved the hand that was on Remus’s arm up and down a little, drawing circles on the fabric of his sweater slowly and calmingly.

Either that helped or Remus was way too tired to even realize, but after a while, the crying turned back into sobs again, and then the occasional pained hiccup. Then, slowly, his heavy breathing evened out and he gave a single sigh as Sirius felt him fall asleep.

He didn’t move. He had one arm wrapped around Remus’s waist, the other going under Remus’s neck and around his shoulder and chest, the hand of his right arm softly drawing circles on the sweater. If he moved, he’d wake him up. And he didn’t want that to happen.

And somehow, even though he never could have imagined that to be possible, he fell asleep too.


End file.
